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LIBRARY OF QONGRESS. 

Shelf.. N43 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE INTERPRETER'S HOUSE. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

LITTLE AND WISE; or, Sermons to 

Children $1.25 

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"Every minister, every Sunday-school 'talker,' and every Sunday- 
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BY DR. RICHARD NEWTON. 

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New Yokk. 



! /' 



.^\- 







I. H. 



THE 

INTERPRETER'S HOUSE; 



OR, 



SERMONS TO CHILDREN. 



/ 



WM. WILBERFORCE NEWTON, 

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE AND WISE," AND "THE WICKET-GATE." 



MilJA ' 




■J 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 Broadway. 

1880, 






The LiBR^ay 
of Congress 



^■KINGTON 



Copyright 1880. 
By Robert Carter & Brothers. 



Cambridge: 

press OF 

JOHN WILSON AND SON. 



ST. JOHNLAND 

STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 

SUFFOLK CO., N. Y. 



PREFACE. 



11 So the other told him, that by that 
he was gone some distance from the 
gate, he would come at the house 
of the Interpreter; at whose door he 
should knock, and he would show him 
excellent things. . . . Then went 
Christian on, till he came to the house 
of the Interpreter, where he knocked 
over and over. 77 — Pilgrim 's Progress. 



CONTENTS. 



1. The Interpreter's House 9 

2. Giving Up and Coming Down ... 41 

3. Blocks in the Way 75 

4. The Day of Glad Tidings .... 105 

5. Figure-Heads 131 

6. Jealousy 165 

7. Sunshine after Storm 191 

8. Wrong Defences 217 

9. Motives— 1 241 

10. " 2 265 

11. Memory 293 

12. Running Away 309 

13. Influence 333 



I. 



Cjje Interpreter's House, 



THE INTERPRETER'S HOUSE. 

"He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto 
yon." — St. John xvi. 15. 

^T is very wonderful how our thoughts 
(3$ are clothed in words. First we think 
of a thing in our mind, but no one knows 
what we are thinking about; then we speak 
the thought out in words, and people hear 
us, but if they do not understand our lan- 
guage, they will not know what we are 
saying. So, then, to understand a person's 
thoughts, words must be spoken in a lan- 
guage common to both people. 

Now this whole question of languages is 
a very strange one. It is so hard to have 
one's head full of thoughts, and then not to 
be able to make other people understand 
what you mean. I have seen English and 
American people, away up at the springs 



12 The Interpreter's House. 

of St. Moritz in Switzerland, trying to carry 
on a conversation with the man at the spring 
who could only talk Italian and German. 

I have stood by and listened, and laughed 
to myself as I have heard all this talk go- 
ing on. It sounded just like Chinese pigeon- 
English. 

"Not muchee water to-day." 

"Where is my leetle glass?" 

"What do you say?" 

"I don't know what you mean." 

"Hey?" 

"What does the fellow mean?" 

"Bother on the man, why don't he talk 
English! There now, pump me some more 
water." 

"Where is the bath man?" 

"Dear me! Dear me! Hold up! Stop! 
Stop, I tell you! 

" I don't understand a word you say ! " 

That is the kind of talk one hears in a 
foreign country, where people have no lan- 
guage which is common to their minds. 
Their thoughts are all right, and are clear 



The Interpreter's House. 13 

enough in their heads; the trouble is they 
want a common language to interpret their 
thoughts. A great gulf is fixed between 
people's minds; and though each would try- 
to get to the other and help them, they are 
as far apart as the rich man was from Laz- 
arus, or as the people were at the tower of 
Babel, when the confusion of languages came 
upon them, and thus because they could not 
understand each other, they were compelled 
to leave off building their city. 

It is only human beings which have this 
gift of language. Parrots and jackdaws and 
ravens- talk; but then they can not carry 
on a conversation. They don't think over 
what they say. They talk just what they 
are taught, as the little finches are taught 
the notes of certain songs. Here in the 
bird show in Boston, some time ago, there 
were a number of these birds which talked 
wonderfully well. There was one big red 
Macaw, who would put his head to one 
side, and seemed to understand what you 
said, and made some wonderful answers. 



14 The Interpreter's House. 

But then he swore badly, and talked in 
French, and sometimes he jabbered away 
in a language of his own so that no one 
could understand him. 

What we all need then, when we can 
not understand the thoughts or the words 
of another, is an interpreter; some one who 
will tell our thoughts to the other one, and 
will translate his meaning to us. All the 
great voyagers and discoverers in the world 
have had interpreters with them to explain 
the language of the people on whose shores 
they landed. Captain John Smith had his 
interpreters among the Indians in the Eng- 
lish colony at Jamestown in Virginia. Sir 
Walter Raleigh had his interpreters when 
he was roughing it in North Carolina. Pi- 
zarro when he conquered the Inca of Peru, 
and Cortez when he captured the empire 
of Mexico, had their interpreters with them, 
to translate their thoughts in the Spanish 
language into the language of these South 
American nations. And Marco Polo and 
Vasco De Gama and Magellan, the great dis- 



The Interpreter's House. 15 

coverers, always had their interpreters along 
with them, so that they might know all 
about the different countries they were in. 

Blind people read and interpret books by 
the use of raised block letters, by which they 
feel the shape of the letters, and in this way 
learn to read with their fingers. Dumb peo- 
ple understand each other's thoughts by the 
use of their fingers. They have a sign lan- 
guage which interprets their meaning to 
them. Here in St. Paul's Church once a 
month there is a service for deaf and dumb 
people, and the minister conducts the wor- 
ship by means of signs. He makes all sorts 
of strange figures and gestures with his 
hands, and the people, simply by watching 
him, understand the service. 

And then there are some things which 
are common interpreters to us, though our 
languages may be different. No matter in 
what country we may be, and hear foreign 
languages spoken, it always sounds natural 
to hear a dog barking in the night, or a 
cock crowing in the morning. We always 



16 The Interpreter's House. 

know what animals mean by their voices. 
We always know what a baby means when 
it cries. Something is going wrong, and, 
though the mother of the child may be 
French or German or Italian, we can always 
interpret the child's cry because the cry 
reveals the baby's wants. And then too the 
language of music is a common language. 
An orchestra might be composed of per- 
formers who spoke twenty separate lan- 
guages, and yet the sheet of music before 
each player interprets to the man the notes 
to be played. 

And now to come to our subject, we find 
that the Spirit of God, or God the Holy 
Ghost, is the great Interpreter of God to us. 
God the Father is like the hidden thought 
in the mind. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
was called by St. John, the Word of God: 
He was God's hidden thought of love to us 
spoken forth or revealed to us, as a word 
reveals a thought. God the Holy Ghost is 
the Interpreter both of God the Father and 
of Jesus Christ the word or revealed thought 



The Interpreter's House. 17 

of God. St. John says of Jesus, "The Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and 
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth." And in our text to-day, Jesus says, 
speaking of the Holy Spirit, the Interpreter 
— the one who knows both hearts : the heart 
of God and the heart of man; the one who 
knows both languages : the language of 
heaven and the language of earth — u He 
shall take of mine and shall show it unto 
you." This means that the Holy Spirit will 
be like an interpreter who understands both 
languages. He will explain God to us and 
will explain our thoughts and words and 
wishes to God. 

For instance, here is a violin. It is a 
wonderful instrument, and the most beau- 
tiful music can be brought out of it. And 
here is a sheet of difficult music. Here is a 
flute, and there is a harp, and on the music- 
stand there is some written music. Suppose 
now, three of us who don't know one note 
from another, should try to play these in- 



18 The Interpreter's House. 

struments. One of us draws the bow across 
the violin, another one blows the flute, and 
a third strums away on the harp. We make 
noises, but we don't make music. We don't 
know how to read the music, and so we can 
not interpret the violin and flute and harp. 
We can not make them tell us any thing. 
But here comes Ole Bull, or Eemenyi, the 
great violinists, with a flute-player and a 
harpist. They make the most beautiful mu- 
sic, where we were only making dreadful 
noises before. They can read the notes; they 
take of the things of the great musical com- 
posers and show them unto us. They trans- 
late those black notes to us and tell us what 
they mean. 

Or let us take another case. Perhaps you 
have heard of the story of William Tell, the 
Swiss patriot. Some people say there never 
was such a man ; but I believe there must 
have been some such hero in Switzerland, 
for the place is filled with stories about him. 
Well, the Austrians under the cruel tyrant 
Gessler had conquered the Swiss. William 



The Interpreter's House. 19 

Tell lived on the beautiful lake of Lucerne, 
the lake of the four cantons, as it is called, 
with Mount Rigi and Mount Pilate looking 
down on the lake, with all those beautiful 
mountains around them. The spirit of lib- 
erty was in those mountains, and the Swiss 
peasants could not help trying to be free. 
Bonfires were lighted on the mountain-peaks, 
to call the clans together, and William Tell 
shot Gessler the tyrant, as he was trying to 
capture him again, after his escape from the 
boat, at that spot on the lake where Tell's 
Chapel now stands. Then Arnold of Unter- 
walden, and Fiirst of Uri, and Stauffacher of 
Schwytz, bound their three cantons together 
in a solemn league and covenant; and at 
last, after a series of wars lasting one hun- 
dred and fifty years, the Austrians were 
driven out and Switzerland became free, 
and for a long time was the only republic 
in Europe! 

Children, what made those sturdy peasants 
free? Why would they not be slaves? It 
was because the spirit of liberty was in 



20 The Interpreter's House. 

those rugged Alpine mountains. The eagles 
were free, and the wild chamois, or moun- 
tain goats, were free, and the people who 
lived in such a free country never could 
become slaves. The spirit of liberty which 
nestled on those snowy heights, took of the 
things of liberty and showed them to the 
Swiss. The air was free, the mountains 
were free, the wild birds were free, and all 
this freedom was translated or explained 
every day, by the sights and sounds around 
them to these Swiss patriots. Nature was 
their teacher, or interpreter. 

And in this same way the Spirit of God 
is our great Teacher and Interpreter. He 
explains God's truths to us, as the violinist 
explains the sheet of music, or as the moun- 
tains taught the Swiss liberty. He takes 
of the things of God and shows them or 
explains them to us. 

In the story of " Pilgrim's Progress," which 
gives us the name to these series of sermons, 
after Christian had entered in at the wicket- 
gate, and was well started on his way to the 



The Interpreter's House. 21 

Celestial City, he came to the Interpreter's 
.House. The Interpreter lighted a candle 
and began to show him all the wonderful 
things in his house. It was just like a 
museum. You must read all about it for 
yourselves in your own copy of " Pilgrim's 
Progress." Here he saw a man sweeping 
and making a great dust, and he saw two 
little children named Patience and Passion, 
and a man in an iron cage, and another man 
buckling on his armor, and fighting his way 
through a crowd of persons who were oppos- 
ing him. And then, too, in the second part 
of the story, when Christiana came along 
with Mercy and the boys, following in the 
steps of Christian her husband, the party 
stopped at the Interpreter's House and saw 
many things which were wonderful, — such 
as the man with the muck-rake, and the 
Tigly black spider, and the hen and chickens 
which called to each other, and the butcher 
killing the sheep, and the pretty robin eat- 
ing a spider, and the garden with the flowers 
and trees in it. 



22 The Interpreter's House. 

What John Bunyan meant to teach by- 
all this part of his story was simply this, — 
That the Interpreters House came next after 
the wicket-gate in the Christian life; or, in 
other words, that after we were started 
right for heaven, we must be taught by 
the Spirit of God. And that is why he rep- 
resented the Interpreter as going about 
and explaining all these curiosities to the 
pilgrims. He meant to show us that the 
Holy Spirit must be our teacher or inter- 
preter. He must explain God's things to 
us, as our Lord had said, "He shall take 
of mine and shall show it unto you." 

Every school is like the Interpreter's House. 
There we learn all about the things of this 
life, and gain the knowledge which is neces- 
sary to carry us along on our journey. Our 
teachers, if they are true teachers, are inter- 
preters. They explain history and geogra- 
phy and chemistry, and show us all sorts 
of experiments in philosophy. They ought 
not merely to stuff us with bits of knowl- 
edge on purpose to hear us repeat these 



The Interpreter's House. 23 

same things by rote, as the German bird- 
fanciers teach their finches to sing bits of 
song. I was struck with this the other day 
when I was travelling in the cars. I was 
reading from time to time in some papers 
and magazines which I had with me, when 
I was amused by hearing the conversation 
of my fellow travellers in the seat next to 
me. A tall, thin, maiden lady, about sixty- 
five years old, had charge of a timid little 
girl of eight years, and was evidently tak- 
ing her away to improve her mind on a 
vacation. The little girl had a doll and 
a picture book, neither of which she was 
allowed to play with. 

"Now, Amanda," said her elderly teacher, 
"put away that trifling picture book and 
enjoy , the beauties of the scenery. Now 
you must have your mind improved. That 
is why I am going with you." 

"But I want to read," replied Amanda. 

"No, Amanda," said her care-taker, "you 
shall not read. I am going with you to 
improve your mind. Your mind must be 



24 The Interpreter's House. 

improved; you must have a profitable time. 
Observe that lovely view in the foreground 
— a fine old farm-house. What does fore- 
ground mean? Don't you know? I am sur- 
prised. Foreground means the view nearest 
to us. Then see that beautiful lake. What 
is a lake, Amanda ? Can't you define a lake ? 
A body of what ? " 

"Water," said Amanda. 

"Yes," replied her teacher, "a body of 
water entirely surrounded by land. You 
see the land goes entirely around it." 

"That's only a pond," observed Amanda. 

"Never mind, child," replied the elderly 
care-taker, " a pond and a lake are the same 
thing; a pond is only a little lake. Now, 
Amanda," she continued, "look at that fer- 
tile valley in the distance with the succu- 
lent corn and the granular wheat. Succu- 
lent means juicy, and granular indicates the 
grain-like nature of the wheat field. How 
can you want to play with your doll while 
passing through such scenery? Why will 
you not use your eyes, Amanda? What 



The Interpreter's House. 25 

were your eyes given to you for ? See that 
farmer with his cart. No doubt he is going 
to the mill. What is a mill, Amanda? 
What? do not know what a mill is? Why 
this is too bad ! I wonder you are not 
ashamed of yourself. I think it is high 
time some one took you in hand to try and 
improve your mind. Are you not glad you 
are going away with me to have a good 
time?" 

And poor Amanda looked any thing but 
glad. 

Now, my dear children, that woman was no 
true interpreter or teacher. That ride in the 
cars would never bring poor little Amanda 
to the Interpreter's House, that true school, 
full of curiosities and delights and fresh 
wonders, such as the Interpreter showed to 
the weary pilgrims, when they knocked at 
its portals over and over again "and saw 
there many excellent things." That teach- 
er couldn't translate the pond and the mill 
and the farmer's cart to poor little Aman- 
da. She couldn't take of the things around 



26 The Interpreter's House. 

her and show them to the little girl. She 
didn't know how to get at the child's heart. 
Amanda's world and Amanda's language 
were a world and a language she did not 
know and could not explain or translate. 

Now, then, how does the Spirit of God 
teach us? How is it that the Holy Spirit 
is the true Interpreter between our souls and 
God? 

I answer, — the Spirit of God, the Holy- 
Spirit, is the true Interpreter — 



Because Tie translates Gods thoughts to us. 

God is holy, and he lives in eternity, not 
in time as we do. The prophet Isaiah says 
in one place, "Thus saith the high and lofty 
One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name 
is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, 
with him also that is of a contrite and hum- 
ble spirit." This means that though God is 
in heaven and we upon earth, that he, nev- 
ertheless, can be taken in by us and can 



The Interpreter's House. 27 

be said to dwell in our minds, as a lesson 
in history or a rule in grammar can be 
said to inhabit our minds, when once we 
have learned them. God dwells in heaven, 
among the stars and the angels, and with 
worlds and living beings about him, which 
we never, never can take in. Go out on 
some clear night and look up at the vault 
of heaven: see the stars and the systems 
and the planets and the milky way. They 
are all worlds, and are Ho doubt teeming 
with life. God has made them. God has 
revealed himself to his children in them; 
God is in them as he is here in this world 
and life of ours. But how could we know 
that the God who made these worlds is the 
same God who gave us the Bible and sent 
to us his Son Jesus Christ, — the word of 
God, the manifestation of God's thoughts, 
— unless the Spirit of God inspired men of 
God to write the Bible, and inspired us 
with faith and hope and zeal to believe? 
The poet Cowper says in that hymn we all 
know, — 



28 The Interpreter's House. 

"Blind unbelief is sure to err, 
And scan his work in vain ; 
God is his own interpreter, 
And he will make it plain." 

There are some things which we do nat- 
urally, and there are other things which 
we must learn to do. We walk, we eat, 
we sleep naturally. But we do not play 
the piano, or know spelling or arithmetic 
naturally. We have to learn these things, 
and the truly great man is the man who is 
learning all the time. 

One time when he was in the Coliseum 
wandering about, Cardinal Farnese discov- 
ered the great genius, Michael Angelo, walk- 
ing alone amid the ruins. 

"Why," said the cardinal, "what are you 
doing, Angelo ? I have watched you here 
for nearly an hour studying out these ruins. 
What need have you to study?" 

" Why, I go to school all the time, that I 
may continue to learn," was the great archi- 
tect's reply. 

And so it ought to be with us in learn- 



The Interpreter's House. 29 

ing about God. Some things we know nat- 
urally about him ; but in order to know the 
truth about God's will, and what he wants of 
us, we have to go to the Bible, and pray for 
God's Spirit to teach us its true meaning. 
When we want to know any thing well, 
we must give ourselves up to learn; we 
must put our minds upon it, and we must 
have a competent teacher to instruct us. 

A good many years ago, there was a won- 
derful story written about slave life in the 
South. You may have heard of it or read it. 
It is called u Uncle Tom's Cabin." There was 
a thoughtless, rattle-brained little slave girl 
described in it called Topsy. One Sunday 
afternoon, Miss Ophelia, her mistress, had 
her come up into the parlor to say her cat- 
echism. Topsy had a good memory and had 
learned to say her catechism very rapidly, 
without stopping to think about the meaning 
of the words, just as a jackdaw or a parrot 
learns the sentences repeated to them. Miss 
Ophelia took no pains to instruct Topsy in 
the meaning of the words, and so Topsy, 



30 The Interpreter's House. 

after saying, u Our first parents fell from 
the state wherein they were created," con- 
tinued, u I say, Miss Ophelia, was dat ar 
state Kentuck?" 

"What state, Topsy?" replied Miss Ophelia. 

u Why, dat ar state they fell out," replied 
the little slave. "I used to hear massa say 
we all come from the state of Kentuck ! " 

Miss Ophelia wasn't a true interpreter or 
teacher to poor little Topsy. She did not 
realize Topsy's ignorance, and therefore she 
could not translate rightly the truths of 
the Bible to her. She could not take of the 
things of God, and show them to the poor 
little slave, who thought the word state al- 
ways meant the state of Kentucky. 

I remember a little boy in Sunday school, 
who told his teacher that he understood 
every thing about the resurrection, except- 
ing one thing. 

"What is that?" asked his teacher. 

"Why," replied the little fellow, "I don't 
see how the Koman soldiers made that seal 
stay on the tomb." 



The Interpreter's House. 31 

You know St. Matthew tells us that the 
soldiers "made the sepulchre sure, sealing 
the stone, and setting a watch " ; and the 
boy thought they put a seal or sea-lion on 
the tomb to guard it. He had just seen 
a seal at an aquarium. The word " seal " 
didn't translate his thought of what a seal 
was. 

There are a great many truths in the Bible 
which we do not realize when we are young, 
but which all come out to us as true when 
we grow older. You know there is such a 
thing as chemical writing on certain kinds 
of paper which can not be seen in the sun- 
light; but when you bring it near the fire, 
and the papef becomes warm, then the red 
writing all comes out to the light. I have 
made this chemical writing many a time 
with a chemical box I had when I was a 
boy. And in this same way God writes 
his truths in our hearts, and by and by, 
when we get out in the heat of life, with 
its cares and trials and temptations, God's 
writing comes out to the light. The Spirit 



32 The Interpreter's House. 

of God interprets the truths of God to us. 
He takes of the things of God and shows 
them unto us. 

I wonder how many of you children have 
read Sir Walter Scott's " Tales of a Grand- 
father," with all those stories of Scottish his- 
tory? I remember reading them and won- 
dering about Bruce and Douglas and the 
Bed Comyn and Holyrood Palace and Stir- 
ling Castle. But when I went to Scotland 
and saw all these places, then the places ex- 
plained the events, and interpreted or ex- 
plained the history to me. 

And just so it is, my dear children, with 
the truth of God as it is revealed to us in 
the Bible. As we grow older in life, and 
get near to the trials and difficulties and 
temptations described to us in the word of 
God, we feel the truthfulness of the Bible, 
as it tells us about God and heaven and 
our way of escape from sin. And this is 
the first thing the Holy Spirit does, — he 
explains God and the truth of God to us. 



The Interpreter's House. 33 
II. 

And then, secondly, the Holy Spirit is the 
true Interpreter between our souls and God, 
because he translates our needs to God. 

In the history of ancient Eome, there is 
a story about the wars of the Sabines with 
the Eomans. The Sabines, who lived near 
Eome, came once upon a time to try and 
conquer it; but they could not get into 
the city. The Eomans defended the walls 
and towers and barricaded all the gates, so 
that there was no such thing as getting in. 
At last some of the Sabine officers saw a 
Eoman maiden named Tarpeia on one of the 
towers. She was the daughter of the Eo- 
man general who was defending that part 
of the city. Tarpeia was very much de- 
lighted with the bracelets which the Sabine 
officers wore on their arms and wanted them 
to give her some. The Sabines told Tarpeia 
that they would give her as many brace- 
lets as she wanted, if she would only un- 
lock the gate and let them in ; so that night 



34 The Interpreter's House. 

she stole the key from under her father s 
pillow, and unlocked the gate of the tower. 
And then the Sabines rushed in, and threw 
so many heavy brass bracelets upon her, that 
she died in the gateway. But the Sabines 
never could have conquered Eome, if there 
had not been some one inside to unlock the 
gates. 

And in this same way, my dear children, 
it is the Spirit of God within us which un- 
locks the gates of the soul and lets the 
truth of God come in and conquer us. That 
is why preaching and teaching does good. 
It isn't all power from outside; there is 
something inside which opens the heart and 
lets the truth come in. We want to be 
saved from sin; we want to get to heaven; 
we have remorse and sorrow for our sins; 
we have a conscience within us which is 
like an alarm bell, and tells us when we 
have done wrong and when we have done 
right. When we are in sorrow, or when we 
have done wrong, then we want to feel that 
God will help us, and will forgive us, and it 



The Interpreter's House. 35 

is the Holy Spirit, the Interpreter of our 
hearts, who puts these feelings there. Our 
Lord called the Holy Spirit the Comforter 
and the Inspirer. He translates our lan- 
guage and interprets our hearts to God. 

At the period of the French Eevolution, 
when hundreds of innocent people were be- 
headed by that cruel instrument the guillo- 
tine, there were ever so many people called 
the Girondists shut up in the Bastile, that 
horrible dungeon in Paris. Every little while 
a French officer would come in, and read off 
a list of victims who were to be marched 
out and put in carts or tumbrels, as they 
were called. Then they would be driven 
off to the scaffold like sheep in a butch- 
er's wagon. Whenever one of these officers 
would enter the dungeon, the poor people 
would shudder, for fear their names would 
be called next. Now, suppose some philoso- 
pher or wise man had entered that dungeon, 
along with the officer of execution, and had 
said, "My friends, I have come here to ex- 
plain some difficult problems in algebra and 



36 The Interpreter's House. 

geometry, please give me your attention," — 
would those poor condemned victims care to 
hear that man talk about algebra? No, in- 
deed. There would be nothing within their 
hearts to respond to his lecture on geometry. 
That lecture would not interpret their feel- 
ings. But now suppose, instead of this pro- 
fessor of mathematics, an apostle of Jesus 
Christ, St. Paul, or St. John, or some true 
Christian disciple had gone in to those 
wretched prisoners and said, " Listen to me, 
my friends. I have come to tell you how 
you can pass right up from the bloody scaf- 
fold to God your Father in heaven. I have 
come to tell you how you may have life and 
may have it more abundantly," — would not 
that language be something they would 
understand and care for? That man would 
interpret the wishes and longings of their 
hearts. It would be something that con- 
cerned them to know. He would take of 
the things of God and would show them 
unto those poor condemned souls. 

It is always a comfort and a pleasure to 



The Interpreter's House. 37 

be told things beforehand, which will save 
us trouble and give us help. Here in Bos- 
ton, from my study window, as I look over 
the Public Garden and the Common, I can 
see very frequently the red storm-flag, with 
the big black ball on it, flying from the 
Equitable Tower on Milk Street. Sometimes 
I have thought to myself, "I am sure this 
doesn't look like a storm coming. I wonder 
if 'Old Probabilities' hasn't made a mis- 
take." But as the day wears on, and as the 
clouds gather, and the snow comes down or 
the rain falls, I think of the sea captains 
in the harbor who must be so glad to know 
about the weather beforehand, and who have 
not sailed yet, but are snugly anchored this 
side of Minot's Light. 

And this is just what the Spirit of God 
does to our souls. He reproves or convinces 
the world of sin and of judgment. He tells 
us of the storms which will come if we do 
not heed his voice, and if we will sail our 
ships just as we think best. He is indeed 
the Interpreter of our own hearts and of 



38 The Interpreter's House. 

the evils and dangers which surround our 
way. He is the great warner of our souls. 

And these are the two reasons why the 
Spirit of God is the true Interpreter or 
Teacher of our souls, — He translates God's 
thoughts to us, and he reveals our souls to 
God. 

Remember, then, these two lessons, my 
dear children, and pray to God the Holy 
Spirit to help you to do God's will, and to 
understand his word, and to put into your 
minds good desires. 

There was a young man at Cambridge, 
who said to a fellow student about to study 
for the ministry, — 

"I don't believe there is any Holy Spirit, 
Fred; because I know Greek, I'm a Fresh- 
man, and the Greek word spirit means only 
wind, breath, air." 

"Be it so," replied his friend; "and then 
be so kind as to tell me the meaning of 
this text, — 'Except a man be born of water 
and of wind, he can not enter into the 
kingdom of God. That which is born of 



The Interpreter's House. 39 

the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
of the wind is wind' " 

His friend had nothing to say to this, 
and the young Christian student said, — 

"I think, Tom, your words are born of 
the wind, and not of the Spirit." 

Pray, then, my dear children, that God 
may soon bring you to the Interpreter's 
House on your journey to heaven; so that 
the divine Interpreter may take of the things 
of God and may show them unto you. And 
if you want a short and beautiful prayer take 
that one which we so often use in church, 
and say, — 

"0 God, Holy Ghost, sanctifier of the faith- 
ful, visit us, we pray thee, with thy love and 
favor; enlighten our minds more and more 
with the light of the holy gospel; graft in 
our hearts a love of the truth ; increase in us 
true religion; nourish us with all goodness, 
and of thy great mercy keep us in the same, 
blessed Spirit, whom with the Father and 
the Son together we worship and glorify as 
one God, world without end ! " 



IT. 



(lifting % an& Coming §ofon. 



GIVING UP AND COMING 

DOWN, 

"Zacchseus, . . . come down." — St. Luke xix. 5. 

CHERE is a great difference between giv- 
ing up and coming down. I knew 
some boys who went into the country for 
the summer, and they made up their minds 
they would become farmers. Their father 
gave them money, and they had some mon- 
ey of their own saved up, and with this 
they began to lay up their stock in trade. 
They bought vegetable - seeds and flower- 
seeds; they bought a hoe and a rake and 
a spade and a measuring line for their gar- 
den; they bought chickens, — big Shanghai 
chickens, and Polanders with topknots, and 
little bantam chickens ; they bought all sorts 
of pigeons, — tumblers and ruff-necks and fan- 
tails and pouters ; they had rabbits, and two 



44 The Interpreter's House. 

pigs which they named after an old uncle 
and aunt of theirs; and they fitted up the 
barn and the chicken-house and the rabbit- 
pen about the first of May, and it looked as 
if there were going to be great things done 
on that farm. But in about one month's 
time, the weeds had come up in the garden, 
and it was impossible to tell the flowers 
from the vegetables; the rabbits had been 
eaten by rats ; the pigeons got tired of 
waiting about for food, and flew away to 
another farm; the cook took care of the 
chickens, and the farmer man had to feed 
the pigs, whose cries for food one could 
hear a quarter of a mile oJff. The boys got 
tired of farming, and preferred to spend 
their days down on a raft, which they had 
made, on a mill-pond near the house. They 
gave up being farmers, and came down to 
being boys again. 

Now there is a great deal of this same 
spirit which these boys showed abroad in 
the world to-day. People start out to do 
great things, and when they find that they 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 45 

can not accomplish what they first set out 
to do, they give up altogether. The next 
year that these same boys went out in 
the country, they didn't attempt such great 
things in the way of farming; they came 
down to a smaller garden and fewer ani- 
mals to take care of. It's very fine to try 
to do great things if we really have the 
power to do them; but if we haven't got 
this power, it's a great deal better to begin 
in a smaller way. 

There is the old fable about Phaeton. He 
saw his father, Phoebus, driving the chari- 
ot of the sun, and he thought it must be 
a very easy thing to do; but when he 
came to try it, the fable says the horses 
ran away with him and he was dashed to 
the earth. 

Every one can not drive his fathers chariot 
taken hes a boy, though when we were boys 
we thought we could. We have to come 
down in our ideas of what we can do. 

A man came into a store the other day 
where I was buying something. He was 



46 The Interpreter's House. 

selling plaster casts of George Washington, 
Abraham Lincoln, and Daniel Webster. 

"Please buy this statue of Daniel Web- 
ster," he said. 

"How much do you want for it?" asked 
the man in the store. 

"Ten dollars," was the answer. 

"Nonsense!" said the store-keeper, "I will 
give you fifty cents for it." 

The Italian image vender looked sorrow- 
fully at his white bust of Daniel Webster 
with his large staring eyes, and then said, 
"Well, I will take it" 

Now that was the difference between giv- 
ing up and coming down. The man did 
not give up his sale, he only came down in his 
price. 

"ZacchceuSj come down 11 — this is our text 
to-day. Our subject is about the difference 
between giving up and coming down. 

Now let us find out something about this 
man Zacchseus, and then see how this story 
teaches us a lesson. 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 47 

When Jesus was on his way to Jerusa- 
lem, he passed through the old city of Jer- 
icho. The people had heard of the miracles 
which he had wrought, and of course they 
all wanted to see the wonderful prophet. 
Jesus was with his disciples, and all those 
who were going up to the feast at Jeru- 
salem travelled together in a caravan; so 
of course this company made quite a long 
procession. There were the beasts of bur- 
den with their packages, and women and 
children on asses, and boys and girls run- 
ning along by their side; then there were 
the men who had been healed by Jesus, 
and there were the lame and the poor who 
kept crying out to him for help. Every 
body in Jericho had heard of Jesus, the 
wonderful prophet. So when this caravan 
came through the town, the people of Jer- 
icho turned out to see it. You know how 
it is with a procession of soldiers or fire- 
men or Masons, — people like to get good 
places at second-story windows, and on bal- 
conies and piazzas, so as to be able to see. 



48 The Interpreter's House. 

Well, when this caravan entered the city 
of Jericho, the people got good places, so 
as to see the great prophet of whom they 
had heard so much. There was a little 
man in Jericho, named Zacchaeus. He had 
heard of Jesus, but he had never seen him. 
He was a Jew; but he was a tax-gatherer, 
and all these tax-gatherers were very much 
hated by the people, because they represented 
the Eoman government, and because people 
never like to be taxed. It was because these 
American Colonies before the Kevolutionary 
War were taxed without representation that 
they fought for their freedom. The people 
of Jericho used to collect the balsam or gum 
from the palm groves near their city, and 
this was exported to Eome. Years before, 
the Eoman general, Antony, had given the 
revenue from these balsam gardens to the 
Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, and ever since 
that time, Herod the Great had kept this 
revenue, as a source of income for himself. 
We know to-day how people dislike to have 
to pass through a custom-house, and pay for 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 49 

things which they have brought home from 
Europe. The men who examine trunks, and 
bring out all sorts of pretty things there, 
and make you pay for them, are generally 
very unpopular men. They are hated; and 
it is said that these men somehow, do be- 
come rich. Now Zacchaeus was a kind of 
custom-house officer, or internal revenue tax 
collector. People hated the little Jew; they 
said that he had made money out of Herod's 
custom-house, and that he had grown rich 
at their expense. I suppose Zacchaeus had 
heard of all these reports, and he had lost 
all respect for himself. It's a dreadful thing 
when any one loses self-respect, and gives 
up trying to be respectable. I suppose Zac- 
chseus thought to himself, "Now there's no 
use in my trying to be a decent man, or to 
do what this Prophet teaches. I must give 
that up altogether, for I do want to keep my 
position here in getting the revenue from 
the balsam; and so I must go on being 
hated. I must give up all thought of be- 
ing a better man." 



50 The Interpreter's House. 

However this may be, he found that there 
was a great crowd around Jesus. Some 
were talking with him, others were ask- 
ing for favors; the sick and the poor and 
the lame were begging to be healed; and 
Zacchaeus, because he was such a little 
man, finding that he could not see Jesus, 
on account of the crowd, ran ahead and 
climbed up into a sycamore-tree on the 
roadside. This was a species of fig-tree, 
and our Lord always seemed to notice the 
fig-trees on his journeys. He could always 
tell whether there was fruit on them, or 
whether they had nothing but leaves. I 
think he must have been very fond of this 
fruit. So when he came to this tree, he 
looked up at it, for it had some other kind 
of fruit on it besides figs this time. There 
was Zacchaeus up in the branches. No 
doubt he thought he was completely hid- 
den from view. People very often think, if 
they can get up into a tree out of sight, that 
they will be safe. Charles the Second, when 
he was flying, after the battle of Worcester, 




\K Penfiel d Sc 
I. H 



p. 50. 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 51 

in which Cromwell had defeated him, got 
up into a great oak with his friends, while 
Cromwell's troopers galloped along beneath 
him. That old oak-tree was preserved for 
a long time afterwards, and it had a tablet 
with these words on it, — 

u ^he Boyal (§)ah, it was the ^ee 
Mhkh $aved his Boyal Majesty." 

And then there was the Charter Oak in 
Hartford, which hid the charter of the col- 
ony on the night when Sir Edmund Andros 
demanded the charter and William Wads- 
worth blew out the lights in the meeting, 
and ran off with the parchment, and hid 
it, in the open trunk of the old oak-tree in 
Hartford Common. 

Well, when Jesus came to the place, he 
looked right up into the tree, just as if 
he saw a bunch of ripe figs there. Then 
he called out, "Zacchseus, make haste and 
come down; for to-day I must abide at thy 
house." Just think how surprised Zacchse- 
us must have been, that Jesus should have 



52 The Interpreter's House. 

known his name, that he should have seen 
him up in the tree, and, above all, that he 
should be willing to come and stay with 
him at his house ! St. Luke says, " He made 
haste, and came down, and received Him 
joyfully." 

Think how different his feelings were, as 
he came down the trunk of that tree, from 
those he had when he went up. What boy 
here to-day, doesn't know that happy feeling 
there is, in coming down from a tree when 
we have got what we wanted, what we went 
up into the tree for. If it was a deserted 
bird's-nest, or a tangled kite caught in the 
branches, or cherries or chestnuts we were 
after — how good it is to get down again to 
the ground, with something in your hand 
to show, and not have the other boys laugh- 
ing at you. Now, Zacchseus must have had 
some such feeling as this when he came 
down so quickly from the sycamore -tree. 
He felt honored by the words of Jesus. He 
had given up all thought of being a friend 
of Jesus; he only wanted to see him once, 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 53 

as he passed through Jericho. It was only a 
feeling of curiosity he had when he climbed 
up into the tree; it was a feeling of thank- 
ful delight he had as he hurried down from 
the branches, and let himself slide down 
the rough trunk of the old tree ! 

The old New England primer has a queer 
picture of this scene. The tree looks like 
a big bush, and Zacchseus is at the top of 
it, and looks like some very large bird. And 
under the picture are these lines, which our 
forefathers studied, when they were little 
children, — 

"Zacchaeus, he 
Did climb a tree, 
His Lord and Master for to see." 

So Zaccheeus came down very gladly, and 
began to show Jesus the way to his house. 
Then the people complained. They said Je- 
sus ought not to go to the house of such a 
bad man as Zacch^eus. They said he had 
defrauded them, and had made money un- 
justly. I suppose some of the citizens were 



54 The Interpreter's House. 

jealous of Zacchaeus, for jealousy always 
causes us to think hard things of others. 

When Zacchseus heard the people com- 
plaining about his character as a custom- 
house officer, or tax collector, he stepped 
forward and said, "Behold, Lord, the half 
of my goods I give to the poor, and if I 
have taken any thing from any man by 
false accusation, I restore him fourfold." 
This was very noble in Zacchaeus, and it 
shows us that he was a good man at heart, 
and that Jesus saw he had good in him. 
And then our Lord added those beautiful 
words, "The Son of man is come to seek 
and to save that which was lost." 

The people thought that Zacchseus was a 
great sinner and he thought so himself; so 
he had given up all idea of following Christ. 
He was lost in his own fears. But when Je- 
sus said, "Zacchaeus, come down," a new 
world opened up before him. Jesus had 
come to save him; he had come to tell 
him not to be afraid, not to give up all 
thought of serving him, because he was 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 55 

not an apostle, but to change his life, and 
do the best he could in Jericho. He was 
not called to go all over the world preach- 
ing the gospel like St. Paul; he must give 
that thought up; but he could stay quiet- 
ly at Jericho, and be a disciple of Christ 
there. 

Jesus didn't say, "Zacchaeus, give it all 
up," he said, "Zacchaeus, come down." 

This, then, is all we know about the story 
of Zacchaeus. 

Now I want to talk about the difference 
between giving up and coming down. 



I. 



First then comes this thought of giving 
up. You know how it is when we are try- 
ing to find out the answer to a conundrum. 
Some people really do try to find it for 
themselves, others say at once, " I give it 
up." And there are a great many things in 
this life of ours which are like conundrums. 
There are times when life itself seems like 



56 The Interpreter's House. 

a great riddle; there are times when we 
have got to master the difficulties in our 
way, when it won't do to say, " I give it up." 
Judas Iscariot was a man who gave it up. 
He sinned against Jesus, and so did Simon 
Peter; but Simon Peter did not despair: he 
didn't give up serving his Lord, only he 
came down afterwards from having such a 
good opinion of himself. 

When Christian, in the story of " Pilgrim's 
Progress," came to the Interpreter's House, 
he was shown, among the other curiosities of 
the place, the man who was in the iron cage. 
" Now the man, to look on, seemed very sad ; 
he sat with his eyes looking down to the 
ground, his hands folded together, and he 
sighed as if he would break his heart. Then 
said Christian, what means this ? At which 
the Interpreter bid him talk with the man. 
Then said Christian to the man, what art 
thou ? The man answered, I am not what I 
once was. I once was, as I thought, fair for 
the Celestial City, and had then even joy 
at the thoughts that I should get thither. 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 57 

I am now a man of despair, and am shut up 
in it as in this iron cage. I can not get 
out : O, now I can not ! " 

Now, my dear children, this picture of the 
man in the iron cage which the Interpreter 
showed to Christian was the picture of the 
man who despaired, who gave up serving 
Jesus, as Judas gave up when he felt the 
greatness of his sins. 

When Julius Caesar, the first emperor of 
Home, was on his way to power, some friend 
asked him what he wanted to be and meant 
to be. He replied, Aid Ccesar aut nvEus — 
" Either Caesar or nobody." And Nelson, the 
English admiral, as his flag-ship was going 
into action in the battle of the Nile, said 
that the close of that day would give him 
either a peerage in England, or a place in 
Westminster Abbey. This sort of persever- 
ance is the right kind. It is right for us 
not to give up, but to persevere when we 
are fighting on the right side. It is when 
we are on the wrong side, and are in sin 
and error, that we ought to be willing, not 



58 The Interpreter's House. 

to give up entirely, but to come down to 
our true and rightful position. 

Think of poor Zacchaeus up in the syca- 
more-tree ! He had given up all thought 
that he could be a disciple of Jesus. He 
knew how the people talked about him, and 
hated him; so that after a while, no doubt, 
he despised and hated himself. He had said 
to himself, I doubt not, when he thought 
about following Jesus, just what we say over 
a hard conundrum, "I give it up — I give 
it all up." But when Jesus passed by, and 
saw him up in the tree, he said, "Zacchaeus, 
make haste, and come down." He didn't say, 
"You're right, Zacchaeus; you'd better give it 
all up." 

Now this is a great lesson for us to 
learn. We must know just when to give 
up and just how to come down. There was 
Earey the famous horse-tamer, for instance. 
Horses would be brought into the ring for 
him to tame, with heavy balls tied to their 
hind feet, and with their fore legs strapped 
together with strong leathern straps. There 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 59 

were horses which couldn't be brought out 
of their stalls, they were so fierce. They 
would kick and bite every one who came 
near them; some horses had to be kept in 
iron stalls; and yet when this wonderful 
tamer came near to them, and got hold of 
their wills, in some strange way, they gave 
up all their crossness and ugliness, and came 
down to be as gentle and playful as lambs 
in a pasture lot or kittens on the kitchen 
floor. 

There is a story told out in Kentucky of 
a famous old hunter named Davy Crockett, 
who was always a dead shot! He never 
missed a shot. Whenever he raised his ri- 
fle to aim at a bird or a squirrel or an opos- 
sum, he always hit it. This story says that 
there was once an opossum up a gum-tree 
out there, who saw a man aiming at him 
up in the tree. He didn't see who it was 
at first, so he went on eating nuts. But 
presently he looked again, and this time he 
saw that it was Davy Crockett who was 
carefully aiming at him. When the "pos- 



60 The Interpreter's House. 

sum" saw Davy, the story is, he called out, 
"Hold on there! You needn't fire; if it's 
you, TU come down!" Of course I don't 
vouch for the truth of this story; but that 
possum wasn't very far wrong in being will- 
ing to come down, if he had such faith in 
Davy Crockett's aim. 

Some of his friends once asked Admiral 
Farragut how it was that he had such a 
successful life, and this is the account he 
gave of his starting right, or how he gave 
up his own wrong plan of life, and came 
down to a better, wiser one. 

"My father," he said, "was sent down to 
New Orleans with the little navy we then 
had, to look after the treason of Aaron Burr. 
I accompanied him as cabin-boy, and was ten 
years of age. I had some qualities which 
I thought made a man of me. I could swear 
like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass 
of grog, as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and 
could smoke like a locomotive. I was great 
at cards, and fond of gaming in every shape. 
At the close of the dinner one day, my fa- 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 61 

ther turned every body out of the cabin, 
locked the door, and said to me, — 

"' David, what do you mean to be?' 

" ' I mean to follow the sea,' said I. 

" ' Follow the sea ! - said my father, • be a 
poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the 
mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, 
and die in some fever hospital, in a foreign 
clime ? ' 

"'No/ I replied, 'I'll tread the quarter- 
deck, and command, as you do.' 

" ' Never, David ! ' my father answered. 
'No boy ever trod the quarter-deck with 
such principles as you have, and such habits 
as you exhibit. You'll have to change your 
whole course of life, if you ever become a 
man.' 

" My father left me, and went on deck. 
I was stunned by the rebuke, and over- 
whelmed with mortification. ' A poor miser- 
able, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked 
and cuffed about the world, and to die in 
some fever hospital — that's my fate, is it,' I 
said to myself. 'I'll change my life, and 



62 The Interpreter's House. 

change it at once. I will never utter anoth- 
er oath. I will never drink another drop of 
intoxicating liquor. I will never gamble.' 
And, as God is my witness, I have kept 
those three vows to this hour. And in this 
way I became a Christian. 

Children, that was the way the noble 
Farragut gave up his bad habits as a boy; 
though he never deserted his country, or 
gave up his ship. That was the way he 
gave up a false life, without giving up his 
country's service. And though he came 
down from a wrong idea of life to a true 
one, he didrit come doivn from the foretop of 
the Hartford, when he brought his fleet 
through the fire of the forts, with his flag 
flying to New Orleans. 

He came down the right tree, the tree of 
his bad habits as a boy, and this enabled him 
to conquer, as he stood up through all that 
fearful fight, on the foretop of his vessel, and 
drove his ships safely into the harbor. 

And then there is the other thought of 
our subject. 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 63 

II. 

This is the thought of coming down. We 
have already touched upon this. When we 
talk about the difference between giving up 
and coming down, it must be that we will 
have to compare the one with the other. 

By giving up, we mean despairing of 
doing any thing at all. By coming down, 
we mean simply changing our plan. 

When boys go to college from their little 
schools, and from their mothers and sisters 
who pet them at home, and make them think 
that they are going to have the first hon- 
ors, when they meet other boys bigger and 
stronger and brighter than they, and better 
prepared for college, there comes a great 
temptation to give up altogether, and to 
say with Julius Cassar, "I'll be first man, 
or I'll be nobody." There is nothing like 
going to a big school or college, where boys 
meet on a level in their studies and plays, 
for bringing one down to his true basis. 
After a while, when we have been knocked 



64 The Interpreter's House. 

about, and have been rubbed into by the 
other boys, instead of saying, "I'll give up 
altogether," we learn instead to do the best 
we can under the circumstances, and come 
down, as Zacchaeus did. And it very often 
happens that when we come down ourselves, 
we can make other people come down also. 

A boy in Boston, rather small for his 
age, worked in an office as errand boy for 
some gentlemen who do business there. 

One day the gentlemen were chaffing him 
a little about being so small, and said to 
him, — 

"You will never amount to much — you 
can never do much business; you are too 
small." 

The little fellow looked at them. 

"Well," said he, "as small as I am I can 
do something which none of you four men 
can do." 

"And what is that?" said they. 

"I don't know as I ought to tell you," he 
replied. 

But they were anxious to know, and urged 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 65 

him to tell what he could do that none of 
them were able to do. 

"I can keep from swearing," said the lit- 
tle fellow. 

There were some blushes on four manly 
faces, and there seemed to be very little 
anxiety for further information on that point. 

It's a great thing to be able to know just 
where to draw the line between giving up 
and coming down. A boy to succeed in life 
must very often give up his own idea of 
what he wants to be, and must suit himself 
to his circumstances and surroundings, and 
when he has conquered them, then he will 
be able to carry out his original plan. 

Some time ago a large drug firm in Bos- 
ton advertised for a boy. The next day the 
store was thronged with applicants, and 
among them was a queer -looking little fel- 
low, with his aunt who took care of him. 

Looking at the poor boy, the merchant 
promptly said, — 

" Can't take Mm; places all full. Besides 
he's too small." 



66 The Interpreter's House. 

"I know he is small," said the woman; 
"but he is willing and faithful." 

There was a twinkle in the boy's eyes 
which made the gentleman think again. A 
partner in the firm promptly said he "did 
not see what they wanted of such a boy, he 
wasn't 'bigger than a pint measure.' " 

The boy, however, was allowed to stay, 
and was set to work. Not long after, a 
call was made on the clerks in the store 
for some one to stay all night. The quick 
offer of this fellow was in strong contrast 
to the backwardness of the others. In the 
middle of the night, the merchant looked 
in to see if all was right in the store, and 
found him quite busy scissoring labels. 

"What are you doing?" he asked. "I did 
not tell you to work at nights." 

"I know you didn't tell me to," said the 
boy; "but I thought I might as well be 
doing something." 

In the morning the cashier received orders 
to double the boy's wages, "for he is willing." 

Only a week passed, before a show of wild 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 67 

beasts went through the streets, and quite 
naturally all hands in the store rushed to 
see it. A thief saw his chance, and en- 
tered the rear door to snatch something, 
when he suddenly found himself grabbed 
by the young clerk and pinned to the floor. 
Not only was this robbery prevented, but 
things taken from other stores were found 
on him. 

"What made you stay behind to watch, 
when all the rest stopped their work to 
look?" asked the merchant. 

" You told me never to leave the store 
when others were absent, and I thought I'd 
stay," said the boy. 

Orders were immediately given once more : 
— " double that boy's wages, because he is 
willing and faithful." 

Before he left the clerkship, he was get- 
ting a salary of $2,500, and now he is a 
member of the firm. That boy had success 
born in him, because he had learned the 
great lesson of not being above Ms work in 
life. Instead of giving up, because things 



68 The Interpreter's House. 

were not as he had expected them to be, 
he simply came down to the requirements 
of the place and the interests of those who 
employed him. And it very often happens, 
when we can not have our own way, and 
have to give up our own plans, that God 
will open up a new way for us to serve 
him, as he did to Zacchaeus when he came 
down from the sycamore-tree. 

There was an officer in the army of Ferdi- 
nand, king of Spain, named Ignatius Loyola. 
He was dangerously wounded in defending 
the city of Pampeluna. As he was confined 
to his bed for a long time, he beguiled his 
pain and employed his solitude in reading 
the lives of the saints. After a while Loy- 
ola's mind was so inflamed by reading of 
their wonderful exploits, that he fancied him- 
self inspired to perform like deeds. Accord- 
ingly he called himself a knight of the 
Blessed Virgin, and undertook a pilgrimage 
to the Holy Land. Then he established the 
order of the Jesuits, the most famous relig- 
ious society that has ever been known. The 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 69 

members of this society had secret rules; 
they soon established their order all over 
Europe and set out to convert the world. 
Their missionaries went to India, China, 
Japan, and North America. They estab- 
lished missions on the Ganges and the Mis- 
sissippi; and spread far up into the snowy 
wastes of British North America. Their 
motto was this, Hoc Vvlt Bens — "God wills 
this." And all this, was from the resolution 
of a battered soldier, who, when he had to 
give up fighting, didn't give up every thing, 
but came down to a different kind of life 
and did the best thing he could under the 
circumstances. 

"Zacehceus, come down." Our Lord did not 
say, "Give it all up, Zacchaeus; you can 
never serve me." No, he told him that lie 
was going home with him that day to dine 
with him and to make a friend out of Zao- 
chaeus. And Zacchaeus instead of giving up 
all thoughts of following Jesus, because he 
could not follow him as the other disciples 
did, stayed at home in Jericho, and did the 



70 The Interpreter's House. 

best he could there. He said he gave the 
half of his goods to feed the poor, and if 
he had done any wrong to any man, he 
would restore it fourfold. This was begin- 
ning well, certainly. 

About the year 300, there lived in Egypt, 
up the Nile, the famous hermit St. Anthony. 
He lived in a cell and fasted and prayed, and 
scourged himself, and tried in every way to 
get sin out of himself. He had whips and 
scourges and all sorts of appliances and fix- 
ings to make him holy, just as a gymnasium 
has weights and pulleys and bars and ropes 
to 7 develop a man's muscles and make him 
strong. He thought he was getting on very 
well, when one night he heard a voice 
saying, " Anthony, Anthony! Thou art not 
so perfect as is the cobbler at Alexandria." 
The next morning, bright and early, An- 
thony took his staff and started off from his 
lonely cell to hunt up this cobbler. He ar- 
rived at Alexandria and went up and down 
the streets inquiring for the holy cobbler. 
No one knew where he lived. "But hasn't 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 71 

he got a cell of his own?" asked Anthony. 
Nobody knew of any such cell. Poor An- 
thony went hunting through the city for this 
man's place, but couldn't find it. I suppose 
he was looking out for some such sign as 
this, — 



HOLY COBBLER'S CELL. 

BOOTS & SHOES 
Honestly Made & Mended. 



It would be a good thing for us nowa- 
days to have a few of these men about. 
At last some one directed Anthony to the 
house. 

"Well, well," said Anthony, "here you are. 
I've found you at last. But you don't look 
very holy. Where is your cell, and your 
scourge, and your staff? I don't see any 



72 The Interpreter's House. 

skulls or Bibles about; this place doesn't 
look very holy. Come now, sir, tell me 
how you spend your time." 

"Why," replied the cobbler, "there isn't 
very much to tell. In the morning when 
I get up, I pray for the whole city wherein 
I dwell, especially for all such poor neigh- 
bors and friends as I have; after this I set 
me at my labor, where I spend a whole day 
in getting my living. And I keep me from 
all falsehood, for I hate nothing so much as 
I do deceitfulness ; wherefore when I make 
any man a promise, I keep it, and perform 
it truly. And thus I spend my time with 
my wife and children whom I teach and 
instruct as far as my wit will serve me in 
the knowledge of God and his word. That 
is all my life," said the cobbler. 

And St. Anthony went back to the desert, 
thinking about the voice he had heard, tell- 
ing him that he was not as perfect as the 
cobbler. 

The cobbler could not be a great saint 
like St. Anthony. But, then, because he 



Giving Up and Coming Down. 73 

could not be like the saints of the period, 
he didn't give up trying altogether. He 
didn't give up. He only came down, and 
stayed in Alexandria, doing as much good 
as he could there, in the same way in which 
Zacchseus did, when he went on living in 
Jericho and serving his Master there. 

Let us remember then the difference be- 
tween giving up and coming down, and if 
we find that we can not do what others 
do, still let us not give up doing what we 
can, even if it is only a very little. 

Some children went once to see President 
Lincoln at the White House, and sang for 
him a little hymn. When they had finished 
they saw that his eyes were filled with tears. 
The poor man was burdened down with care 
during the war, and politicians and news- 
papers blamed him, first for this thing and 
then for that thing, and he said these words 
expressed just what was in his heart. 

This is the hymn that the little children 
sang for President Lincoln: it is the one 
lesson of our sermon to-day, — 



74 The Interpreter's House. 

"If you can not on the ocean 

Sail amongst the swiftest fleet, 
Booking on the mightiest billows, 

Laughing at the storms you meet — 
You can stand amongst the sailors, 

Anchor'd yet within the bay, 
You can lend a hand to help them, 

As they launch their boats away. 

"If you are too weak to journey 

Up the mountains, steep and high, 
You can stand within the valley, 

As the multitudes go by; 
You can chant some happy measure, 

As they slowly pass along; 
Though they may forget the singer, 

They will not forget the song. 

"If you have no gold or silver 

Ever ready at command, 
If you can not to the needy 

Stretch a constant open hand, 
You can visit the afflicted, 

O'er the erring you can weep, 
You can be a true disciple, 

Sitting at the Master's feet." 



III. 



Utlz in t\t $8 a jj . 



BLOCKS IN THE WAY. 

" And the angel of the Lord went further, and stood 
in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to 
the right hand or to the left." — Num. xxii. 26. 

SOME years ago a large party of minis- 
ters and others went for a six weeks' 
excursion into the Adirondack wilderness 
in New York State. There were fourteen 
persons in the party, and these, with the 
ten guides who were necessary, made quite 
a small army to be provided for. And then, 
instead of sunshine, the rain kept coming 
down in torrents, for it was a wet moon in 
a wet August. And there were no fish to 
be caught, and the deer* kept away, and 
these ministers had to live upon hard tack 
and salt pork. They slept in the wet, and 
sat in the wet, and ate their meals in the 
wet, and walked in the sopping wet roads. 
Every other day the head guide would give 



78 The Interpreter's House. 

orders to move the camp, and try some 
other camping -ground. Then these minis- 
ters would get their things together. Guns 
and fishing rods and tin cans and writing 
cases and oars and shawl bundles, would all 
be made up into parcels, while the gentle 
rain would keep on, as if it meant to give 
these travellers a taste of how it felt to have 
forty days and forty nights of it. In going 
from one lake to another, over what were 
called "the carries," these ministers had to 
take up and carry their packages. One of 
them was very near-sighted. He had to 
carry two oars over each shoulder, and be- 
sides this had to lead two big deer-hounds 
by a strap. The " carries" were very hard 
places to get over. There were logs and 
stumps and big stones and holes in the 
ground right in the way, and this poor 
minister would drop his eye-glasses, and 
the dogs would get between his legs, and 
the long oars would catch in the thick 
bushes, and he wouldn't know how to get 
on. Presently he would call out to his 



Blocks in the Way. 79 

guide, — " Hanck ! Hanck ! here's something 
in my way." Then Hanck, the guide, would 
run back and get the oars out, or unwind 
the dogs who had got their straps twisted 
around his legs. One time the poor man 
would lose his way; the next time he w T ould 
tumble over some log in the " carry." 

" I never saw such a road," the minister 
said at the end of the journey. " There was 
something in the way all the time." 

u That's so," replied the guide — u it was you 
that were in your own way." 

Now it makes a great difference, my dear 
children, whether we think other things are 
in the way, or whether we are in our own 
way, and are standing in our own light. 

Henry Clay drove up one day in his car- 
riage to a tavern in a lonely part of Ken- 
tucky. 

"Are you going by the turnpike or the 
river road ? " asked the landlord of Mr. Clay. 

Mr. Clay was not feeling veiy well ; he had 
a headache, and was standing in his own light 
He was tumbling about over the logs that 



80 The Interpreter's House. 

were in his mind, — those moody, angry feel- 
ings which we sometimes have as our com- 
panions, and he replied, 

"I believe, sir, I don't owe yon one cent; 
I shall take whichever road I please." 

The landlord collapsed, and had nothing 
more to say. After dinner, Mr. Clay got into 
his carriage and drove out as far as the gate. 
Up to this time he had thought that the 
landlord was in his way ; but now the driv- 
er did not know which road to take ; there- 
upon Mr. Clay stood up in his carriage, and 
called back to the landlord, 

" Which is the shortest road to take to 
Shelbyville?" 

The landlord called out from his piazza, 
"you don't owe me one cent, Mr. Clay — 
you can take whichever road you please." 

It was the great Henry Clay who was in 
his own way after all. He was like the man 
in the Adirondacks tumbling over those logs 
he ought to have stepped over. The trouble 
was he was in his own way; it wasn't the 
landlord who was troubling him. 



Blocks in the Way. 81 

Now this sermon is about 

BLOCKS IN THE WAY. 

In Xenophon's Anabasis — that Greek book 
which we read in school, giving an account 
of the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, 
after the defeat of Cyrus at Cunaxa — there 
is an account of a method of overcoming 
the cavalry, by making them stumble in the 
field. The night before the battle, one side 
would go over the field where they thought 
the cavalry would charge in the morning, 
and would drop on the ground, round iron 
balls, like cannon balls, with long spikes on 
them. These tripods were called caltrops, 
and were designed to wound the horses' 
hoofs, and in this way to destroy the effect 
of a cavalry charge. Just think how an- 
gry these blocks in the way would make 
the leader of a cavalry force. He couldn't 
make his men fight at all. 

And you know how bad it is to try to 
hunt for a box of matches in a dark room 
6 



82 The Interpreter's House. 

at night. You stumble over cushions, and 
bump up against chairs, and upset tumblers 
of water, and knock things off the mantel- 
piece. You think all these things are in 
the way; but if you only had a light, you 
would find that the things are in their 
proper places, and that it is your own 
hands which are in the way. 

Our text to-day is found in the story of 
Balaam. He was a man who was always 
getting in his own way! 

We all know this story. Balak, the king 
of Moab, was afraid to fight with the Isra- 
elites who were travelling through the wil- 
derness to the promised land, so he heard 
of this wonderful magician or wizard, who 
was a sort of half gypsy, half Jew, and he 
sent for him to stop the progress of the 
Israelites by cursing them. Balak wanted 
to put a block in their way; he wanted to 
fill the field with these spikes or caltrops, 
only he thought there was nothing so pow- 
erful in the way of a check as the curse of 



Blocks in the Way. 83 

this prophet Balaam. Then Balak brought 
Balaam from one mountain-top to another, 
with his priests and princes, and his altars 
and bullocks and rams, and told him to look 
down on the Israelites and curse them. But 
it was all in vain ! The altars were vain and 
the sacrifices were vain. The curse would 
not come; for God turned every curse into 
a blessing. Balak at this grew very angry ; 
he told Balaam that he had meant to pro- 
mote him to great honor, but that God had 
kept him back from honor. Balaam said he 
was very sorry, but that if the king were 
to offer him a house full of silver and gold, 
he couldn't speak any thing but that which 
God should put in his mouth. Balaam was a 
great man for making pretty speeches. He 
talked very religiously; he used very pious 
words, but all his religion began and ended 
in talk. 

Our text to-day tells us about the ad- 
venture which happened to Balaam, when 
the king of Moab first sent messengers for 
him. Balaam wouldn't go at first, when Ba- 



84 The Interpreter's House. 

lak sent for him. Balaam talked very re- 
ligiously to these men, but after a while, 
though God had told him not to go, he 
got up early in the morning, and saddled 
his ass and went. He was deliberately dis- 
obeying God, though he tried to make these 
men think that he was a very holy man. 

Some one of these days, perhaps you will 
read for yourselves the Italian poet Tasso's 
"Jerusalem Delivered," or the poem about 
the crusaders and their conquest of Jerusa- 
lem. In that poem you will read about a 
famous wizard named Ismeno, who always 
seemed to me to be just such a man as this 
Balaam. He made incantations and rolled 
his eyes, and uttered spells, and stirred up 
a fire, and drew a circle on the ground, and 
did all sorts of strange things. 

Balaam couldn't do any thing without 
seven altars and seven bullocks and seven 
rams. Then, when one mountain wouldn't 
do, Balak would say, "Try another moun- 
tain, perhaps the fault is in the place, per- 
haps you can curse the Israelites from some 



Blocks in the Way. 85 

other mountain -top." So they would pack 
up their things, and go down the sides 
of that mountain, the warriors with their 
spears, and the priests in their white robes, 
with the sheep and oxen which were to be of- 
fered up in vain, to bring down a curse that 
would not come. Then they would climb up 
another and another mountain, till at last Ba- 
laam said, that there was no use, that God 
had blessed these people, and that no one 
could stand against God. I have no doubt 
Balaam was well paid for all these journeys 
up and down the mountains of Moab. And 
so, as it seemed to be too bad to be paid for 
that which he could not do, he suggested to 
the king, who wanted to keep these peo- 
ple, the Israelites, out from his land alto- 
gether, that he had better invite them to 
one of his heathen feasts. Balaam thought 
they would be sure to come, and God would 
be sure to punish them. And this is just 
what happened. Balak invited the people 
to come to the feasts, and they fell into the 
sins of the Midianites, and worshipped their 



86 The Interpreter's House. 

idols, and then a plague was sent upon 
them, and ever so many people died. In 
the sixteenth verse of the thirty-first chapter 
of Numbers, we read that this plague came 
upon the people because they committed 
a trespass against the Lord, through the 
counsel of Balaam. After this the children 
of Israel fought against the Midianites and 
killed their kings; and we read that "Ba- 
laam also the son of Beor they slew with the 
sword." — Num. xxxi. 8. And this was the 
end of the man who had said, "I shall see 
him, but not now." "Let me die the death 
of the righteous, and let my last end be 
like his." He talked very piously, but after 
all he was found fighting against the peo- 
ple of God. 

Our text to-day tells us of that period in 
Balaam's history when he was taking the 
first wrong step. God had told him not to 
go to Balak, and Balaam got up very early 
in the morning and went. Then he had 
nothing but trouble. God's angel stood in 
the way to block up his path. Balaam didn't 



Blocks in the Way. 87 

see the angel. But the ass — who was a very- 
wise and sensible ass, much wiser in fact 
than the man whom she carried — saw the 
angel, and rubbed up to the opposite side of 
the road, where there was a wall. This 
crushed Balaam's foot, and he grew very- 
angry, and beat the poor beast, and said he 
wished he had a sword, for then he would 
kill her. At last the angel went further and 
stood in a narrow way, and when Balaam's 
foot was crushed again, he saw the angel 
who was blocking up the way with a sword 
drawn in his hand. This frightened Ba- 
laam ; especially after the ass had been talk- 
ing to him. This angel, was the first mem- 
ber of any society for the prevention of 
cruelty to animals which we read of in the 
Bible. He took Balaam to task for beating 
his poor beast. Hereupon Balaam began to 
talk his hypocritical pious talk again. He 
said, "I have sinned; for I knew not that 
thou stoodest in the way against me: now 
therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me 
back again." 



88 The Interpreter's House. 

Dear children, this is just what I said in 
the beginning. It was Balaam who was in 
his own way after all. He was like the man 
in the woods stumbling over the logs and 
stumps. The angel was in the way, and the 
wall was in the way, simply because Balaam 
was out of the way. He was going wrong, 
and he was in trouble. He was finding out 
what we all find when we go wrong — that 
there are 

BLOCKS 
IN 
THE 

WAY. 



L 



Now the first lesson we learn from this sub- 
ject is, — that we do not see our own stumbling- 
blocks. We do not know our own faults ; we 
are like Balaam who was blind to the diffi- 
culties in his way. 

Look at a lot of boys and girls playing 
blind-man's-buff. They crawl around a room 



Blocks in the Way. 89 

with their arms spread out to keep them 
from falling, and they stumble about over 
cushions and chairs and all the furniture. 
They do not see these things over which 
they tumble. They think the chairs are in 
their way, when all the time it is they them- 
selves who are in the way; the chairs are 
all right. And just so it is with us in re- 
gard to our stumbling-blocks or faults; they 
are in our own way, and yet, though we are 
quick enough to find out the faults of others, 
we are very slow to see our own. 

A monk went, once upon a time, to see 
his abbot, and complained of his cell, be- 
cause it was in the vicinity of another monk, 
of whom scandalous stories were in circula- 
tion. The man who complained said he sup- 
posed they were true, since another monk 
had told him. 

"Ah," said the abbot, "a monk who tells 
such tales has fallen from his profession 
and is unworthy of belief." Then the abbot, 
picking up a straw and looking at a large 
beam over his head said, "This straw is 



90 The Interpreter's House. 

my neighbor's sin which. I trample on with 
scorn; that log is my own sin which I rarely 
notice, but which may one day fall and crush 
me." 

There is an old Gaelic proverb which says, 
"If the best man's faults were written over 
his forehead, it would make him pull his hat 
over his eyes." 

Some time ago, a party of workmen were 
employed in building a very tall shot tower. 
In laying a corner, one brick, either by 
accident or carelessness, was set a little out 
of line. The work went on without its be- 
ing noticed; but as each course of brick 
was kept in line with those already laid, 
the tower was not put up exactly straight, 
and the higher they built, the more inse- 
cure it became. One day, when the tower 
had been carried up about fifty feet, there 
was a tremendous crash. The building had 
fallen, burying the men in its ruins. All 
the previous work was lost, the materials 
wasted, and worse still, valuable lives were 
sacrificed, and all this from one brick laid 



Blocks in the Way. 91 

wrong at the start. How little the work- 
man who laid that one brick wrong, thought 
of the mischief he was making for the fu- 
ture. That one faulty brick, which the work- 
man did not see, caused all this trouble and 
death. This was the stumbling-block in the 
way of the tower's success. 

It is very true, then, that we do not see 
our own faults and errors, though we are 
quick enough to see the faults of others and 
lay the blame upon them. Balaam didn't 
see the angel in his way, so he laid the 
blame on the ass, and beat her with his 
stick, and wished for a sword that he might 
kill her. And in the same way, we very 
often fail to see those things which prevent 
us from going forward and doing our best 
work. We are sometimes as blind, and un- 
reasonable, and angry, as Balaam was, and 
fail to see the blocks that are in our way. 

In Glasgow one day, two Scotch sailors, 
who had been drinking heavily, took their 
boat to pull off to the ship; but after row- 
ing some time, as they made no progress, 



92 The Interpreter's House. 

each accused the other of want of effort. 
Finally, after an hour's work, when they 
had become a little sobered, one of them 
happened to look over the side and discov- 
ered the difficulty. "Why, Sandy," said he, 
"we haven't pulled the anchor up." They 
hadn't gone forward at all — they were only 
pulling round and round. 

And, my dear children, it very often hap- 
pens that the reason why we don't make 
more progress is that we haven't pulled 
our anchor up. We are tied fast to some 
fault or habit or obstruction, and can not 
get on until we have cut loose from it. We 
ought always to be glad to have other people, 
who are true friends, tell us of our faults. It 
isn't pleasant to be found fault with, I know ; 
but if we are going on blindly, as Balaam 
went, bumping first upon one side of the 
road, and then upon the other, a true friend 
who will help us to know ourselves, will 
be to us, what the angel with the drawn 
sword, was to Balaam, when he was bound 
the wrong way. 



Blocks in the Way. 93 

II. 

The second lesson we learn from this story- 
is, — that ive are all apt to lay the blame for 
our mistakes upon some one else. 

This is one of our poor human nature's 
greatest faults. It began in the garden of 
Eden, and it has continued as one of our com- 
monest evils ever since. People when they 
get into trouble, always are tempted to hunt 
about for some one on whom to put the blame. 
It was John's fault, or Mary's fault ; it was the 
servant's fault, or some friend's fault. Why, 
I know people who are never without some 
poor excuse of this kind. They would have 
been more punctual, or they would have been 
more regular, only it was So-and-so's fault. 
In the garden of Eden, Adam said, "The 
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, 
she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." 
And Eve hunted around for an excuse, and 
said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did 
eat." Just see how it was in this story of 
Balaam. First Balaam said it was the fault 



94 The Interpreter's House. 

of the ass that his foot was crushed against 
the wall ; then the ass spoke up and said it 
was not her fault; and last of all the angel 
said it was Balaam's fault: it was because 
he was in the wrong way that he was finding 
so many stumbling-blocks in his path. 

The Israelites used to have a custom, upon 
the great day of atonement, of bringing out 
before the people a goat, called the scape- 
goat. The high priest would then confess 
the sins of the people over his head, and the 
people would beat him with sticks, and drive 
him away into the wilderness. He was 
called the scape-goat, because he was sup- 
posed to carry all the people's sins, away 
into the wilderness. And we often see 
people who make a scape -goat of their 
friends, and lay all the blame upon them, 
as the Israelites did with the goat in the 
wilderness. 

There was a painter once in Greece, who 
was requested by Alexander the Great to 
paint his portrait. When it was all finished, 
the king came to see it. He looked it all 



Blocks in the Way. 95 

over, and then said, "Yes, it is very good. 
But where is the scar on my forehead?" 

" Ah," replied the painter, " I have covered 
the scar with your hand." 

The painter had painted Alexander's fore- 
head leaning upon his right hand, and the 
forefinger covered the defect on the fore- 
head. 

Now we ought to be willing to take our 
own share of blame; we ought not to be 
continually pointing out the scars of our 
friends; we ought to try to cover their de- 
fects, and lay the blame where it belongs. 
But this is a very difficult thing to do. 
People do not like to lay the blame upon 
themselves. 

In a settlement of miners, where there 
were a great many hard and rough charac- 
ters, there was a big Irish boy who was 
a great favorite. His name was Teddy 
McCool. Teddy was a terrible drinker, and 
was killing himself with liquor ; at last some 
of his rough friends among the miners asked 
him to sit down while they read a dreadful 



96 The Interpreter's House. 

story out of the newspaper. Teddy couldn't 
read, so he lighted a pipe, and listened to 
the story. They wanted to frighten him 
out of his drinking habits, so they made 
up a story and pretended to read it out of 
the paper. This story went on to say, that 
a man from the old country came over to a 
mining town in Colorado, and fell into such 
hard drinking habits, that one night when 
he was going upstairs to bed, as he held the 
candle close to his mouth, it ignited his 
breath which was steeped in liquor, so that 
he took fire and died. 

"Now, Teddy," said the men, "what do 
you think of that ? " 

" Dear me," replied Teddy, " isn't it dread- 
ful? Give me the Bible, till I swear upon 
it." 

The men thought he was going to prom- 
ise that he would stop drinking ; but instead 
of this he said, 

" I, Teddy McCool, hereby solemnly prom- 
ise and swear, that I'll never go upstairs to 
bed, with a lighted candle." 



Blocks in the Way. 97 

Teddy was unwilling to take the blame 
upon himself, and his evil habit of drinking, 
so he put all the blame upon the lighted 
candle. He was like Balaam, whipping the 
poor ass, when all the time it was his own 
fault, that his foot was crushed by the wall 
in the narrow way. 

There was a man once, in a New England 
town, named Isaac Davis. He was a hard- 
hearted, cruel man, — one who ground the 
poor, and turned them right out of doors, 
if the rent wasn't paid up, and did all 
sorts of hard things. 

He used to go to church regularly, and al- 
ways said "Amen" very loudly. He had a 
rough, harsh whisper, and when the minister 
would preach about people's sins, he would 
root at them with his cane, and whisper 
out, "Say Amen to that, Neighbor Jones"; 
or, "Say Amen to that, Miss Brown." 

The minister had prepared at last what 

ministers call, "a rod in pickle," for this 

man. He wrote a sermon expressly for him, 

but he waited month after month for an op- 

7 



98 The Interpreter's House. 

portunity to preach it. At last the day- 
came. One very stormy wintry afternoon 
the minister went to church. No one came 
to the service but this Isaac Davis. The 
sexton was at the door, the minister was in 
the pulpit, and Isaac Davis sat in his pew. 
Then, when the time came for the preach- 
ing, the minister began, and preached his 
sermon for Isaac Davis. He denounced men 
who came to church and appeared pious and 
at the same time ground the faces of the 
poor. He said that the wrath of God would 
visit their souls, and their day of punish- 
ment would surely come. 

Poor Davis looked all about, to see to 
whom this applied; but there was no one 
but the sexton and the organ-blower and 
himself. He could not apply this sermon 
to any one else, and when the minister 
finished, he leaned over his pulpit, and, 
looking the man straight in the eye, he 
exclaimed, 

"Say Amen to that, Isaac Davis! Say 
Amen to all that!" 



Blocks in the Way. 99 

The second lesson which we learn from 
this story is — that, like Balaam, we like to 
lay the blame upon some one else. 

III. 

The third lesson this story teaches us, is 
— that we must overcome the difficulties in our 
way, if we want to have God's blessing. 

When Balaam's eyes were opened, and he 
saw who it was that was standing in his 
way, he expressed great sorrow. I don't 
know whether or not he was really sorry. 
He wasn't a true man, and we can not trust 
in the pretty speeches of men who are not 
true at heart. 

Balaam, as we have seen, was very good 
at talking religion ; but he wasn't very 
strong as a doer of God's will. God sent 
that angel to block up Balaam's way on 
purpose that he might see how far astray 
he had gone, and might come into the right 
way. That block in the way, when the 
angel of the Lord stood in a narrow place, 



100 The Interpreter's House. 

where there was no way to turn either to 
the right hand or to the left, was directly 
from God himself. 

You remember in " Pilgrim's Progress," 
how Christian came to the Hill Difficulty at 
the bottom of which there were two paths 
— one turning to the right and the other to 
the left. One of these side paths was called 
Danger, the other path was called Destruc- 
tion. Well, my dear children, we each of 
us have our own Hill Difficulty every little 
while in life, and we either climb over it, 
as Christian did, or we give it up and go 
round by some other way. I knew a boy 
in school whose Hill Difficulty was his arith- 
metic. When the teacher was not looking, 
this boy would get a friend of his to copy 
down the answers to his examples. This 
was just like climbing round the hill, in- 
stead of going up over it. 

And now see how this going round the 
Hill Difficulty, instead of going over it, both- 
ered that boy. He went on and on in this 
way, getting up into classes where he did 



Blocks in the Way. 101 

not really belong, and being supposed to 
be able to do examples, which he could not 
do, until at last, when he came to enter col- 
lege with his class, he failed in his mathe- 
matical examination, and was dropped for 
another year until he had mastered the dif- 
ficulties in his way, instead of going round 
them. 

Let us all say, when we come to our dif- 
ficulties, that which Christian said when he 
came to the hill called by this same name, — 

"This hiU, though difficult, I covet to ascend; 
The difficulty will not me offend, 
For I perceive, the way to life lies here: 
Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear; 
Better, though difficult, the right way go, 
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe." 

We always gather strength by overcom- 
ing our difficulties, and not by running away 
from them. Look at Columbus and Pizar- 
ro when they explored this western world; 
look at Dr. Kane, and Sir John Franklin 
when they went to the far north to try and 
find the open polar sea; or see how Dr. 



102 The Interpreter's House. 

Livingstone travelled through Africa, and 
how Stanley went to find him, when we all 
thought that he was lost, and went directly- 
through the Dark Continent, from one ocean 
to the other, — up dreadful rivers, and amid 
fierce and hostile tribes, fighting his way- 
through and through all sorts of difficulties, 
with his little band of men, and his boat, the 
Lady Alice. Why, my dear children, the 
way of all great men, and of those who 
have been successful in the world, has been 
right over the Hill Difficulty. 

When we are in the wrong path, or when 
we make our own stumbling-blocks, then the 
blocks in our way will only hurt us; but 
when we are on good and honest ground, and 
are trying our very best to get on, the dif- 
ficulties which we overcome will give us so 
much additional strength. Benjamin Frank- 
lin's life as a struggling boy shows us how 
he had to contend with heavy obstacles in 
his path. What a hard time he had as an 
apprentice boy; and yet how manfully he 
struggled on. Thackeray, the great writer, 



Blocks in the Way. 103 

had his first story refused again and again by 
the publishers. When John Lothrop Motley 
took his History of the Dutch Eepublic to 
the English publishers they would not look 
at it. Charles Dickens began to write as 
"a penny-a-liner." 

There are M Blocks in the way" all through 
our lives. We get into narrow places, where 
there seems to be no way to turn, either to 
the right hand or to the left; but then if 
we are in the right way, and pray to God 
to give us strength to go on, I believe, if 
we look long enough, we shall see some mes- 
senger from God to help us through; as 
Balaam, when his eyes were opened, saw 
the angel of God, heading him off from 
the wrong way, into the way he ought 
to go. 

I trust then, my dear children, that you 
will not forget this story of Balaam, and 
the lessons it teaches us — 

1st. We do not see our own stumbling-blocks. 

2d. We are apt to lay the blame upon others. 



104 The Interpreter's House. 

3d. We must overcome the difficulties in our 
way, if we want to have God's blessing. 

And this is all I have to say upon the 
subject of 

BLOCKS IN THE WAY. 



IV. 



C|e Jag of (Haft Sifcings. 



THE DAY OF GLAD TIDINGS. 

"Then they said one to another, We do not well: 
this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our 
peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mis- 
chief will fall upon ns: now therefore come, that we 
may go and tell the king's household." — 2 Kings vii. 9. 

^rjf> OYS and girls always think that it is 
(^7 mean to keep a good thing to them- 
selves. I remember a big boy who punched 
his little brother, and gave him a terrible 
whipping, simply because he went and told 
the other boys in the party, that the place 
where his brother and he were fishing, was 
a place where they had plenty of bites, and 
were catching a great many fish. The big 
boy wanted to catch the whole pondful of 
fish himself; the little fellow wanted the 
other boys to have a good time along with 
themselves. And he got a cuffing and a 



108 The Interpreter's House. 

beating from his big brother, simply " be- 
cause he went and spoiled all his fun, and 
couldn't keep mum about the bites." 

Now the story where our text is found to- 
day, tells us of the way in which four poor 
miserable men, who were sick and faint and 
ready to die, behaved, when they found what 
people call u a streak of good luck." They 
passed in one day, from a condition of such 
misery, that they were welcoming death all 
the long and weary day, to a state of wealth, 
so that they were like kings; and yet they 
did not forget their brethren or keep all the 
good things to themselves. The sun of that 
morning rose upon four beggars, who were 
lepers outside the gates of Samaria, and at 
night, that same sun set upon four rich men, 
who had found all the treasures of the king 
of Syria, and were living in the deserted tents 
of the Syrian host. And yet, though these 
poor lepers became suddenly so rich, their 
good luck did not make them mean. They 
did then what a great many people nowa- 
days forget to do, — they remembered their 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 109 

brethren and friends in the day of their 
prosperity. 

This is the story. It is just like a fairy 
tale. In the days of Elisha, the prophet who 
followed Elijah, about eight hundred and for- 
ty years before Christ, the city of Samaria 
was besieged by the Syrians. The army 
of the king of Syria was encamped all 
around the place. The poor people of Sa- 
maria could not get out of the city and es- 
cape to the country, nor could their friends 
from the country break through the ene- 
my's lines, and get in to them within the 
gates. Then there broke out a terrible fam- 
ine in the city, such as we read of in his- 
tory. The people were dying of starvation, 
and the scenes in the streets were dreadful. 
If any of you children ever read Motley's 
History of the Dutch Kepublic and of the 
Netherlands, you will come across a wonder- 
ful description of just such a famine as this, 
in our own great historian's description of 
the siege of Harlem and the invasion of Ant- 
werp. In Macaulay's History of England, 



110 The Interpreter's House. 

too, you will read a wonderful account of 
just such a famine, in the siege of London- 
derry. In the old Academy of Fine Arts in 
Philadelphia, there is a large picture of the 
raising of the siege of Leyden. I shall nev- 
er forget the impression this picture made 
upon me when I was a boy, and used to 
go on Saturday, with the other boys, to see 
this picture, and Benjamin West's picture 
of Death on the Pale Horse. The enemy 
have gone ; the gates are thrown open, the 
walls are broken down, the buildings are 
on fire, dead and dying people are lying 
about in the streets, and hungry, famished 
women and children, are looking like the 
gaunt faces of starving beasts. 

This famine at Samaria, then, was as bad 
as it was possible for a famine to be. After 
the people had eaten up all they could find, 
they began to eat up each other. We read 
that as the king of Israel passed by a cer- 
tain place on the wall, a woman cried out, 
saying, "Help, my lord, king. And he 
said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence 



The Day of Glad Tidings. Ill 

shall I help thee ? Out of the barn floor or 
out of the wine-press? And the king said 
unto her, What aileth thee ? And she an- 
swered, This woman said unto me, Give thy 
son, that we may eat him to-day, and we 
will eat my son to-morrow. So we boiled 
my son, and did eat him: and I said unto 
her on the next day, Give thy son, that we 
may eat him; and she hath hid her son." 
Now when the king heard this, he did a 
very foolish thing, as you can see for your- 
selves if you turn to the sixth chapter of 
the Second Book of Kings. He made up 
his mind that Elisha the prophet should die, 
because he did not seem to be able to pray 
this famine off, or to work any miracle, for 
the deliverance of the city. He sent a mes- 
senger to bring Elisha into his presence, and 
he made a vow that his head should be taken 
off his shoulders the next day. When the 
messenger came, Elisha shut him up in a 
room and held him fast. Then he prophe- 
sied that on the morrow at that same hour, a 
measure of meal should sell for a shekel, and 



112 The Interpreter's House. 

two measures of barley for the same price. 
A shekel of silver was about two shillings 
and sixpence, or about forty cents a bushel of 
meal. There was a certain nobleman stand- 
ing by, who heard Elisha's prophecy; he did 
not believe it. I suppose he laughed or 
sneered at the prophet as he said, "Behold, 
if the Lord would make windows in heaven, 
might this thing be." And Elisha answered 
him, "Behold, thou shalt see it with thine 
eyes, but thou shalt not eat thereof." 

And now comes in our story about the 
four lepers. Those poor men were sitting 
at the gate of the city, bemoaning their 
fate. At last one of them proposed, that 
they should go out, and fall into the hands 
of the Syrians. Nothing worse could possi- 
bly happen to them there, than was sure 
to happen if they sat still in the gateway. 
They were bound to die of starvation if 
they sat where they were. If the Syrians 
killed them with the sword, even this was 
better than to die by inches, this miserable 
death by starvation. u Now therefore come," 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 113 

said one of them, "and let us fall unto the 
host of the Syrians : if they save us alive, we 
shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but 
die." So they stole out of the gate, and 
crept on stealthily until they came to the 
tents of their enemies. And then what a 
sight met their bewildered eyes ! There was 
no enemy there; they had all fled, in a 
panic in the night. The Syrians thought 
they heard the noise of chariots and horses 
and soldiers in the dark. They thought that 
the Egyptians had come up to rescue the be- 
sieged city, and they left every thing, and 
ran for their lives. So when these four 
lepers came to the king's tent, they found 
food and drink, and plenty of gold and 
silver and all sorts of fine clothing. Oh how 
happy those hungry, starving men were ! 
They couldn't take it all in; it seemed too 
good to be true. First they ate the good 
things, and drank the wine which they 
found there; then they took a lot of gold 
and silver and clothing, and hid them in the 
ground. They dug a hole, and put them 
8 



114 The Interpreter's House. 

in, and marked the spot, so as to know the 
place, when they should come there a second 
time; then they sat down and rubbed their 
hands, to think over their good luck and all 
the treasures they had found so unexpected- 
ly. They had just those feelings which boys 
have when they have found at last a good 
place where the fish are biting, and then look 
down the banks of the brook and see their 
friends standing there catching nothing, with 
their poles in the water, just as if they were 
anchored there. And then the good side of 
their nature came out. They thought of the 
poor people in the city dying of starvation, 
while they had found out plenty to eat and 
drink, and then the words of our text occur 
— "Then they said one to another, We do 
not well : this day is a day of good tidings, 
and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the 
morning light, some mischief will come upon 
us : now therefore come, that we may go and 
tell the kings household." 

Now I want you to read the rest of this 
story for yourselves, as you will find it writ- 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 115 

ten out in the seventh chapter of the First 
Book of Kings. Then you will see how the 
prophecy of Elisha came true, and how the 
lord who had said it could only be done if 
God were to open windows in heaven, was 
appointed by the king to stand in the gate- 
way, and was trodden to death by the crowd 
of people who pressed out to the deserted 
camp of the Syrian army — so that he saw 
the food, but tasted none, as the prophet 
had said. 

This, then, is our story to-day. Now let 
us pass over eight hundred years, and see 
our Lord's disciples going back to Jerusalem, 
after his ascension into heaven. The world 
did not believe in Jesus then. The nations 
of the earth did not know the good news 
of his salvation. They were like the poor 
people of Samaria, shut up within the city's 
wall and dying of starvation there; but the 
apostles were bold, brave men, and they 
were no longer afraid of the Jews or the 
heathen. They were filled with the Spirit 
of God on the day of Pentecost, and had 



116 The Interpreter's House. 

the strength of their ascended Lord. Peo- 
ple were astonished at the boldness of Peter 
and John, and we read in the book of the 
Acts, that they took knowledge of them that 
they had been with Jesus. Then the apos- 
tles began to go tip and down the land, 
preaching the good news of the kingdom 
of God. Philip went down to this very Sa- 
maria, and there was a great revival there. 
Peter went down to Joppa, and had the vi- 
sion, at the house of Simon the tanner, of 
the great net let down from heaven with 
all sorts of animals in it. Then he taught 
Cornelius, the Eoman centurion, who found 
out that God was no respecter of persons. 
And just think what St. Paul and St. Luke 
and St. Mark and Timothy and Titus did! 
They went all over the face of Europe, as it 
was then known, preaching about the Sa- 
viour of the world. They did not keep this 
all to themselves, they told the good news 
to others, wherever they could find listen- 
ers. They were the first great preachers of 
the cross of Christ; it was their preaching 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 117 

about Jesus, which converted the nations of 
Europe, — Germany, France, and Great Brit- 
ain. If it had not been for them, we might 
still have been heathens. But, like the lep- 
ers of our text, the apostles said, "This day 
is a day of good tidings, and we hold our 
peace: if we tarry till the morning light, 
some mischief will fall upon us: now there- 
fore come, that we may go and tell the 
King's household." 

The disciples, then, felt that it was wrong 
in them to keep this good news to them- 
selves. Moreover, our Lord had distinctly 
told them that they were to go into all the 
world and preach the gospel to every creat- 
ure. Jesus said, "The field is the world." 
Those nations which had not heard of him 
still belonged to him. They were all mem- 
bers of "the King's household." If the apos- 
tles were to wait until they knew more, or 
felt themselves better prepared, some mis- 
chief might fall upon them, and so they 
might never go at all. And with this spirit 
impelling them, they went up and down 



118 The Interpreter's House. 

the world, teaching the nations the truth of 
God. Their earnest feet hurried over the 
hot sands of the desert; mountains could 
not keep them back; rivers were powerless 
to hinder them ; armed bands of hostile 
tribes could not prevent them. They sailed 
over the Mediterranean Sea, and were in 
perils by land and in perils by water. They 
were in perils among false brethren, and 
in perils among the heathen. They were 
in perils all the time, and the martyr's 
crown was continually before them. Yet 
they pressed on; they did not hold their 
peace; they did not wait until the morrow. 
They said, "This day is a day of good tid- 
ings, .... now therefore come, that 
we may go and tell the King's household." 
And, my dear children, this is the way we 
ought to feel on any bright festival day, like 
Christmas, or Easter, or Anniversary Day, 
or Monthly Missionary Meeting. We ought 
to remember, on such a day, how much has 
been done for us, and we ought to be will- 
ing to do what we can, to help to carry 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 119 

these glad tidings to the rest of the King's 
household. 

This subject teaches us two lessons. 



I. 



The first lesson of our story is this : Selfish- 
ness rots the character. 

There was a rich, mean old farmer once, 
who had his barns filled with apples. He 
wanted to get a certain price for them, but 
he could not do this. There was no demand 
for these apples in the market, and there 
they rotted in the barn. It was very hard 
times in those parts, just then, and the poor 
country people had very little to eat; and yet 
that miserable old farmer preferred to let 
his apples rot, before he could make up his 
mind to give them away. But the way in 
which those apples, stored up in his barn 
rotted, wasn't a circumstance to the man- 
ner in which that mean old man's soul was 
withering and rotting. 

There is a tower belonging to an old cas- 



120 The Interpreter's House. 

tie on the Ehine, called Bishop Hatto's Tow- 
er. People look out for it now, as they sail 
up the river Ehine on the way to Mayence. 
The story says — for it is an old Ehine fa- 
ble — that a great many years ago, there 
was a famine through the country. Peo- 
ple were dying of starvation, as these poor 
people of Samaria did. Bishop Hatto had 
plenty of corn and grain stored in his 
castle, but he would not part with it. The 
poor hungry souls pleaded for food before his 
castle walls; but he turned a deaf ear, and 
refused to give them any corn, and let them 
die before his castle gate. At last the castle 
was invaded by thousands of hungry, starv- 
ing rats. They ate up every thing they 
could find in the castle; they used up the 
corn and grain, and last of all, they ate up 
Bishop Hatto, and only left his bones to tell 
the tale of his destruction. But there wasn't 
very much for those Ehine rats to eat up in 
such a man, after the selfishness and mean- 
ness of his soul had eaten all that was good 
out of him. 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 121 

And, my dear children, it is these little 
sins of ours which begin to do the work of 
destroying the character, and thus prepare 
the way for larger sins. In Tennyson's 
poem of Vivien, which you will know some 
day, there is one song which Vivien sang to 
Merlin the Enchanter. It is this, — 

"It is the little rift within the lute, 
That by and by will make the music mute, 
And ever widening, slowly silence all. 

"The little rift within the lover's lute 
Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, 
That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 

It is always sad to see any thing rotting, 
that was made to be used. Many a bucket 
could have been used, if it could only have 
had water put into it, instead of letting it 
stand in the sun all the day idle, with noth- 
ing to do. Many a ship, going slowly to 
pieces at the dock, might have done good 
service if she only could have been used, in- 
stead of being left unused, fretting and chaf- 
ing, and bobbing helplessly up and down, 



122 The Interpreter's House. 

tied through summer s heats and winter's 
ice to the deserted pier. And many a na- 
ture which God made for some great pur- 
pose and work in life, has been eaten to 
pieces, or has rotted away, because it had 
nothing to do in the world, or because the 
sin of selfishness has utterly destroyed the 
character. 

There was a sailor once, who went to 
Greenland, walrus hunting among the Esqui- 
maux up there. He made up his mind that 
he would get more money on the trip than 
any of his companions ; so he stole a skin 
here, and kept back money there, and at 
last, in this way, he had quite a bag of gold, 
which he tied around his waist. It was 
very heavy to carry, but he would not lay 
aside his money-belt night or day. As they 
were embarking in the small boat, which 
was to carry them to the brig in which they 
were to sail home, a heavy surf broke over 
the boat, and capsized it. The men swam 
out for their lives, and clung on to the boat, 
but this avaricious sailor was weighed down 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 123 

by his heavy money-belt and was drowned. 
It was his selfishness and greed which sank 
him. And selfishness always ruins the char- 
acter. 

We read in the 106th Psalm, where we 
have a description of the waywardness and 
sin of the Israelites in the desert, that God 
" gave them their request, but sent leanness 
withal into their souls." That is, they had 
every thing they wanted, but at the same 
time had mean and selfish souls. 

Look for instance at Napoleon Bonaparte. 
He was one of the most remarkable men 
the world has ever seen. He was wonder- 
ful in whatever he attempted to do; but he 
killed out his conscience very early in life, 
so as to let nothing on the earth, or under 
the earth, interfere with his plans. When 
his soldiers were sick in the hospitals in 
Egypt, it is said that he allowed poison to 
be given to those who were the sickest, so 
as to hurry them out of his way. He made 
his brother Jerome give up his beautiful 
American wife, Miss Patterson, who has 



124 The Interpreter's House. 

only recently died. He wanted his brother 
to be married to some member of one of the 
reigning kings' families in Europe. He di- 
vorced his true and faithful wife, Josephine, 
simply from motives of ambition, and thus 
put away the one who loved him best in 
the whole world. On one occasion he re- 
buked a soldier for stealing some bread. 

"Please your majesty," replied the soldier, 
" I had nothing to eat, and you know I must 
liver 

"I do not know that it is at all neces- 
sary that you should live," was Napoleon's 
answer. 

Now, my dear children, there is nothing so 
killing to true character as selfishness. It 
is the little sin of our childhood hours, 
which, unless it is destroyed in time, will 
ruin our after life. Little children who keep 
saying " Me first ! Me first ! " in their plays 
— will keep on all through their lives think- 
ing first and foremost of themselves, in every 
thing they undertake. 

Therefore let us all beware of selfishness, 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 125 

since it is like the little speck in the gar- 
nered fruit, which by and by will slowly 
moulder all. 



II. 



The second lesson of this story is — that 
Living for others makes us happy. 

I am sure those lepers, were a great deal 
happier, for going back and telling the poor 
famished people in the city. No doubt the 
people in Samaria had despised these lepers, 
and had made them keep off by themselves. 
You know how it is if you have scarlet 
fever, or whooping-cough in your family; 
people don't care to have you shake hands 
with them; your friends see you coming, 
and pass by on the other side of the street, 
as the priest and the Levite did in the story 
of the Good Samaritan. And this was the 
way it was with these poor lepers. Nobody 
cared to see them; no one wanted to meet 
them; every one avoided them when they 
were seen coming along the streets. But 



126 The Interpreter's House. 

when they came running back from the de- 
serted camp of the Syrians, and called out, 
" Good news ! good news ! the enemy has 
fled! the Syrians have run away!" then, I 
tell you, those very people who had said be- 
fore, "Get out of my way; don't you come 
near me," were glad enough to see them ! 

I have often watched a solitary log burn- 
ing on a hearth. It doesn't get on very 
well by itself. There comes a feeble flicker- 
ing flame, and a spurt of fire now and then, 
and a little smoke. One lonely log on the 
andirons is not a very cheerful sight. But 
now pile on the logs, one over the other, 
and see how the wood seems to enjoy giv- 
ing out its warmth and fire. The sparks 
crack, and the flames leap out and wrap the 
logs all around, and the chimney roars as if 
to say, "This is just what I was made for." 

And this is the way in which these poor 
lepers made a very distressed city, full of hap- 
py people. They gave out their warmth and 
cheer, as the logs give it out on the hearth. 
They did not keep it all to themselves. 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 127 

And we ought not to keep the good news 
of Jesus Christ all to ourselves. If we want 
to be truly happy, we ought to try and send 
these glad tidings, to all the rest of "the 
King's household." God means us in this 
world, to have care and trouble, on purpose 
to fit and prepare us by discipline and pa- 
tience for the life that is to come. And if 
people don't have trouble, then they worry 
and fret over imaginary troubles, until their 
life is miserable. Some people fret about 
their money; some are worried about their 
children; others envy their neighbors and 
friends, who they think are better off than 
they are themselves. And all this is because 
people live only for themselves. They are 
like the solitary log on the fireside, trying 
to make a big blaze out of itself. 

But, my dear children, we can not be hap- 
py if we are selfish. We can only be truly 
happy in living for others. Why, just see 
how God has written this fact all about us 
in life. Go with me into a barnyard. See 
the old hen with her little chickens. She 



128 The Interpreter's House. 

lives for them; she picks up food for them; 
she doesn't think of herself, she thinks only 
of her little brood. How she will fly at you, 
if you try to run away with one of her 
chicks! All animals have this instinct of 
living for their young. God has put it into 
their nature. See how the poor distressed 
cow, moos for her calf, which they are taking 
away in a cart to the butcher's. She doesn't 
think of herself, or of her food; she only 
wants to care for her "bossy calf." Even 
the fierce Bengal tiger, in the jungles of 
India, will die before she will let one of her 
whelps be taken from her. And think of 
the birds, how they give up being gay fel- 
lows, when the time comes for them to turn 
to, and build their nests for the little ones. 
They don't get time now to sing ; they have 
to hunt about for worms and crumbs and 
food so that their babies may not starve. 
Our own poet Bryant, has written a beau- 
tiful song about " Kobert of Lincoln," or 
the " Bobolink," in which he describes him 
with his bright feathers, caring now for his 



The Day of Glad Tidings. 129 

family, instead of sporting himself in the 
sun. The bees, the ants, the birds, and 
the animals, all show us this law of God 
for all his creatures, that — living for others 
makes us happy. The disciples found this 
out when they went abroad, preaching the 
gospel; all God's true servants have found 
it out. There was Bishop Patteson down 
in the Melanesian Islands; he taught the 
men how to farm, and the women how to 
cook. He left England as a young man 
never to go home again. He left his friends 
and comforts and ease, and went out to 
the heathen, to tell them, away off among 
the Pacific Islands, of the glad tidings of 
Jesus Christ. He said he never looked for- 
ward more than a week at a time, for fear 
he should grow desperate, as he thought 
of the old life he had left, for the sake 
of these very people, who afterwards killed 
him. But his life is one of the happiest 
you can read about to-day — a great deal 
happier than hundreds of selfish people at 
home, who are only living for themselves. 
9 



130 The Interpreter's House. 

So then, my dear children, do what you 
can, and give what you can, for those of 
the King's household, who have not heard 
of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ. Ke- 
member that selfishness rots the character, 
and that living for others makes us hap- 
py; and let this story of the four lepers 
bringing the good news to the famished 
city of Samaria, teach us all a lesson as we 
too rejoice, in this day of glad tidings, and 
send the gospel to the rest of "the Kings 
household." 



igttr*-|ha)>s. 



FIGURE-HEADS. 

"A ship . . . whose sign was Castor and Pollux." 
Acts xxviii. 11. 

^rjf) OYS always love to hang about a wharf. 
(37 There is something very attractive about 
ships. They go so far off to foreign coun- 
tries, there are so many stories about sailors 
and shipwrecks, we always love to stop on 
the wharves and look at the vessels there. 
Then, too, a wharf is always a favorite place 
with boys. There are barrels, and boards to 
roll them on, there are sugar casks and mo- 
lasses casks which do leak sometimes, and 
need to be doctored with a long straw, and 
there are always boys at the end of the 
wharf trying hard to fish. But it is after 
all the ships which make a walk along the 
wharves so pleasant. They are so very dif- 
ferent. Some are ugly, old-fashioned tubs 



134 The Interpreter's House. 

which look like canal boats, and some are 
beautiful new clippers, with sharp cutting 
bows and clean new white canvas. Then 
there are so many different kinds of steam- 
ers nowadays. When I was a boy, a steamer 
at a dock was a rare thing; but now there 
are more steamers than sailing vessels, at 
the piers of our large cities. Some steam- 
ers have side wheels and walking beams, or 
workers as the boys call them, and others 
are screw-propellers. Some steamers have 
bowsprits and are wooden ships, others look 
like grown-up steamboats and are iron. 

There are two things about ships which 
boys like to look at ; these are the flags and 
the figure-heads. The flags have their places 
on the masts, and at the peak, and the fig- 
ure-head is generally a painted wooden im- 
age found under the bowsprit; but some- 
times it is found over the rudder at the 
vessel's stern. All vessels do not have flags 
and figure-heads ; but all vessels have a name, 
or a sign, by which they can be known and 
registered. 



Figure-Heads. 135 

The figure-head at the vessel's bow, is 
generally a painted image of the person 
after whom the ship is named. I remember 
wandering over the wharves at Scarborough, 
away up in the North of England, and be- 
ing amused with the names and figure-heads 
of the fishing boats up there. These boats 
go fishing up and down the North Sea, be- 
tween England and Norway, and they are 
very strange-looking boats, with their round, 
black bows, their yellow sails and painted 
sterns. One boat, I remember, was named 
"Jane and Eliza,' 1 and there was a figure- 
head at the bow of two young girls; perhaps 
they were the skipper's daughters. One was 
named "Simon Peter" and another was called 
"John Wesley" and each of these boats had 
a figure-head at its bow, representing the 
person after whom it was named. 

Now in our text to-day, we are told the 
name or sign of the ship, in which St. Paul 
and his party, sailed from the island of Me- 
lita, or Malta, on their journey to Rome. 
This ship was from Alexandria in Egypt, 



136 The Interpreter's House. 

and was probably a large grain ship, such 
as cruised up and down the Mediterranean 
Sea, carrying supplies from the rich gran- 
aries of Egypt, to the many islands and 
cities in the Mediterranean. This was not 
the ship in which St. Paul was wrecked. 
This was the ship which carried him, from 
the island of Melita, where they had been 
wrecked, to the harbor of Puteoli, on his 
way to Eome. St. Luke, who wrote this 
book of the Acts, tells us that, after three 
months' stay at Melita, they departed in a 
ship of Alexandria which had wintered in 
the isle, " whose sign was Castor and Pol- 
lux." I suppose this means that her name 
was Castor and Pollux, or that she had 
these names written upon her flag or pen- 
nant, or else that this ship had Castor and 
Pollux as her figure-heads. 

The ancient ships, or triremes, as they 
were sometimes called, were built with high 
sterns and bows or prows. These prows very 
often had great brass and iron beaks on them, 
sometimes resembling the beak of an eagle, 



Figure-Heads. 137 

or the mouth of a dragon, or the jaw of a 
lion, or the tusk of an elephant or wild boar. 
Vessels were very often in those days, named 
after the gods and goddesses of the Greeks. 
Sometimes they were put under their care, 
and then they made some sign, or hung out 
some pennant, or cut out some ornament in 
the ship, in order to show that the vessel 
was under the protecting care of this di- 
vinity. This was called the vessel's sign or 
name. 

So this boat, in which St. Paul and his 
companions made the rest of their journey, 
was named after, or put in the care of, these 
two heathen gods. The vessel's sign, or fig- 
ure-head, or name, was " Castor and Pollux." 
If any of the citizens of Melita had said to 
St. Paul, "Well, sir, in what vessel do you 
expect to sail to Kome?" he would have 
replied, "Why, in the Castor and Pollux — 
that large grain ship from Alexandria, which 
has been here for three months at this 
island!" 

Castor and Pollux were two heathen gods. 



138 The Interpreter's House. 

They were said to be the sons of Jupiter. 
Castor was supposed to be the god of horse- 
men, and charioteers and fast horses, and 
Pollux was the patron of boxing. He was 
a great pugilist, or fisticuff fighter. Pollux 
was supposed to be immortal, but Castor was 
killed in a certain battle of the gods, where- 
upon his brother Pollux offered to share his 
fate, dying and reviving every day. 

You know how in every farmer's almanac, 
there are the signs of the zodiac, — u the ram, 
the bull, the heavenly twins," and all the rest 
of them. Well, the sign of the gemini, or 
the twins, is the sign of Castor and Pollux. 
There are certain stars named after these 
gods, so that they are well-known terms 
in astronomy; for along with the sign of 
the fishes, and the water-carrier, and the 
crab, is the sign of Castor and Pollux, these 
twin sons of Jupiter. 

But it makes very little difference whether 
this sign of Castor and Pollux was a flag, or 
a figure-head, or a sign of the zodiac in as- 
tronomy, it gave a name to the ship in which 



Figure-Heads. 139 

St. Paul sailed to Rome, and this gives us as 
our sermon to-day — the subject of 



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I. 



And, first of all, I would say, that figure- 
heads are wooden things. You know perfect- 
ly well what these wooden heads or signs 
are. You must have seen them on ships, 
or in front of certain stores, such as tobac- 
co stores, where wooden Indian chieftains, 
or maidens, are represented as offering ci- 
gars for sale. There is a wooden image of 
an old sailor, in front of a nautical store in 
State Street, Boston, where compasses, and 
ship goods are sold, which the inscription 
says has been standing there since the year 
1710. These figure-heads, are signs of what 
are to be had inside. They do not tell us 
any thing; they are only signs, or symbols, 
or painted pictures, of what is to be found 



140 The Interpreter's House. 

within. They are only wooden images — 
they have no insides or works. 

A Sunday-school teacher was once asking 
her scholars what the works of the devil 
meant. One of the class had said in her 
catechism, that at her baptism, her spon- 
sors had promised that she should renounce 
the devil, and all his works. 

"Now, Jane," said the teacher, "what do 
you understand by 'his works'?" 

Jane's father was a clockmaker, and she 
had often . seen him mending clocks and 
watches, and talking about the "works" of 
the clock. So Jane, after thinking a mo- 
ment, said, "Please, ma'am, I think it must 
be what he has got inside." 

The children all laughed at poor little 
Jane for her funny answer; but Jane wasn't 
very far wrong after all. The works of the 
devil are those things which the devil has 
planned, or contrived for us to do. They 
are his inward and evil suggestions, and 
these desires or impulses for wrong-doing, 
are just like the works of a clock. They 



Figure-Heads. 141 

work out of sight, and behind the face of 
the clock ; but the hands of the clock tell us 
what time it is, and show us just how the 
works are working inside. A mere figure- 
head clock has got no works or insides; a 
mere painted devil carved out of a block of 
wood, can do us no harm, just as a painted 
image or god of the heathen, can do them 
no good, simply because it is an idol, and 
has got no inside or soul. 

When the English government opened the 
ports of China, in the opium war, thirty- 
years ago, the Chinese mandarins and not- 
ables, were very much impressed with the 
wonderful doings of the English fleet; they 
thought the English war-steamers, with their 
smoke and their guns, were far ahead of 
their own vessels. 

So the emperor of China sent for some 
ship-builders, and told them they must go 
to work at once, and make some Chinese 
war-steamers, just like those of the English. 
This was a hard thing to do, but they set 
to work as well as they knew how. They 



142 The Interpreter's House. 

took some old junks, and cut holes in their 
sides, and ran wooden logs out, to represent 
the guns of the English; then they put 
a large wooden pipe in the middle of the 
junk, and made smoke on the deck, with 
wet hay and straw, and set a number of 
coolies, or slaves, to work pushing this Chi- 
nese steamer along with poles. 

Now, my dear children, those Chinese war- 
vessels were figure-head vessels. They were 
wooden things all the way through; they 
had no insides or works. They were only 
signs or symbols of real ships. The figure- 
head part of them was all pretty enough, but 
then there was no reality to the ships ; they 
could not fight, or steam, or sail. 

And here is where our first lesson comes 
in to-day — Figure-heads are only wooden things. 

Dear children, be real boys and girls now, 
and then you will be real men and women 
when you grow up. Do not be wooden 
things; don't have outside manners, " com- 
pany manners" as they are called, and then 
when you are alone or only with your family 



Figure-Heads. 143 

be ugly and disagreeable. Remember the 
Chinese war- vessels, which had no machinery 
inside, and could not therefore go. Don't 
get into the way of looking only at the 
surface of things. I knew a boy once, who 
would not keep himself clean; but he put on 
clean collars and cuffs, and buttoned up his 
coat, and every body thought he was clean, 
when he was far from it. His cleanliness 
was only a figure-head cleanliness. 

Figure-heads are only pretty things for 
the surface, when there are other things 
to accompany them, which are necessary. 

Suppose a captain should be willing to go 
to sea with a figure-head under his bowsprit, 
and a flag flying at his peak, but without 
any compass, rudder, chart, or ballast, — what 
would we think of him ? And yet there are 
many people out in the world to-day, who 
are willing to be ignorant, foolish, wicked — 
only they do not want to be thought so. 

Dear children, be real and true in what 
you do. Don't be mere wooden figure-heads. 
Have some works, or machinery, or life with- 



144 The Interpreter's House. 

in you, as well as the painted sign or image 
of the life on the outside. Kemember the 
wooden figure-head at the door of the shop, 
or on the bow of the ship, is not what is in 
the shop or ship ; it is only a sign or picture 
of what is there. 

An old minister was once speaking of 
two young men, who thought they had a 
call to preach, and wanted to study for the 
ministry. 

"Now," said he, "there are James and 
Alexander, — both good young men, — but 
then we know, that they have got all the 
goods in their shop, in the shop window." 

He meant by this, that every thing they 
had was for show, and was on the outside, 
where people could see it. Eemember the 
first lesson of this sermon, — Figure-heads are 
wooden things, — and don't you have every 
thing on the outside; don't be superficial 
and wooden, as the Chinese junks were 
when they had wooden pipes and wooden 
guns, and yet were supposed to be real 
steamers by the men who made them! 



Figure-Heads. 145 

II. 

Secondly : Figure-heads are only for orna- 
ment. ' 

Ornaments are very pretty things to have 
about one's house; but they are not neces- 
sary things. We can live perfectly well, 
without paintings and bronzes and fine cur- 
tains. It would be very foolish to go out 
and buy ornaments for your mantel-piece, 
when there was no coal in the cellar, and no 
flour, or coffee, or tea, or sugar, in the kitch- 
en. It would be just like buying a painted 
figure-head for a vessel, when there was no 
money to buy the canvas to make her sail. 
There are some things in life which are 
necessary and essential, and there are other 
things which are very pretty and ornamen- 
tal, but which are not at all necessary. I 
have often been struck with this at a photog- 
rapher's. People come there to have their 
likeness taken. What they want is to have a 
true and speaking copy of their face, with its 
natural expression. And then they begin to 



146 The Interpreter's House. 

sit. First of all the photographer puts a 
screw thing behind their heads, and then he 
pulls away the blue shade, to let the sun in, 
and then he bends the arms, and puts all 
one's ten fingers right in front, in the lap; 
by this time the sun makes a person's eyes 
weak and dim, unless he has an eye like 
an eagle's; then he arranges the folds of the 
lady's dress, and the lady is very anxious 
that her collar and necklace and diamond 
ring shall be taken; then the person tries 
to look pleasant, or interesting, and tries not 
to think of any thing, looking right into the 
brass tube of the camera, and thinking all 
the while, of how the picture will look. 
Then, when it is all over, and it is touched 
up and painted, it is a beautiful picture. 
The diamond ring is there, and the necklace 
is there, and the folds of the silk dress are 
beautiful ; but the face is spoiled, by all this 
time and attention that has been spent upon 
the ornamental part of the picture. I be- 
lieve that the only way to take a picture, is 
to take the face first quickly, and then to 



Figure-Heads. 147 

take the dress, and all the outside fixings 
afterwards. As it is now, we only get figure- 
head pictures, where people think more of 
the ornamental, than of the necessary part 
of the photograph. 

Now, it is well enough in life to like 
pretty things, and to have an eye for the 
beautiful ; but we must first have that which 
is necessary and useful, before we go hunt- 
ing for that which is ornamental. Some 
people want fine clothes and houses and 
horses, before they have got the necessaiy 
money to pay for them, and then, thinking 
only of these ornamental figure-heads to 
their lives, they run into debt, and fail, and 
come to grief and trouble. Dear children, 
remember this rule — "Nothing is necessary 
that we can not pay for." A man can sail his 
ship without any flag, or sign, or pennant, 
or figure-head. These things can not make 
the ship go. They are pretty enough as or- 
naments, when the vessel is sailing; but the 
captain and the owners and the passengers, 
could get along perfectly well without them. 



148 The Interpreter's House. 

I don't believe St. Paul stopped very long, 
to think about the name or sign of the ves- 
sel, in which he was to sail for Eome. It 
did not make much difference to him wheth- 
er the ship had a figure-head or not. This 
figure-head was not an essential thing. But 
St. Paul, after his last shipwreck, would nev- 
er have sailed in the " Castor and Pollux" 
if she had no rudder, or canvas, or ballast, 
on board. These were necessary and useful 
things; the flags and the figure-heads were 
only ornamental things. 

Some time ago, in the Crimean war, or 
the war which England, France, and Tur- 
key waged against Eussia, there was a 
great deal of suffering and privation among 
the British troops. Their supplies of food 
and clothing failed to reach them, and they 
were left to suffer for the want of them. 
One cold night, two poor fellows were shiv- 
ering around their camp-fire, trying to toast 
their feet and smoke their pipes, when one 
said to the other, 

"Never mind, old fellow, when we get 



Figure-Heads. 149 

home, the queen will give us a gold medal 
for our service." 

"That's very well in its way," replied the 
other one; "but suppose by that time we've 
got no coat to tie the gold medal on to?" 

The coat was the necessary thing, and 
the medal was only the ornamental thing; 
one was the ship, the other was only the 
ornamental figure-head which adorned the 
ship. 

So then, my dear boys and girls, learn to 
choose in life between that which is useful, 
and that which is only ornamental; and if 
you can not have both, take that which is 
useful, and let that which is ornamental 
wait, until you can get it. When you have 
money to spend ; when you go shopping for 
yourself, or for others ; when you buy books, 
presents, or clothes, — learn to choose be- 
tween that which is solid and that which 
is unnecessary and superficial. Get into the 
way of knowing a good thing, when you see 
it ; learn to form principles which will guide 
you, in the many cases which will come be- 



150 The Interpreter's House. 

fore you for a decision; learn to know a 
useful and necessary thing from a merely 
fanciful and ornamental one, just as a ship- 
captain knows that a rudder is for use, and 
a figure-head is only for ornament. 

III. 

Thirdly: I would say that, Figure-lieads 
represent other people. 

In Greece and Eome, in ancient times, 
the heathen divinities were represented in 
many different ways. Minerva, or the god- 
dess of wisdom, was always represented as 
being clad in mail, with a helmet and a spear. 
Neptune was painted, as dashing through the 
waves, in a chariot drawn by three horses, 
while he himself was armed with a trident, 
or three-pronged harpoon. Jupiter was al- 
ways represented as sitting upon a great 
throne, with a sceptre in his hand. Castor 
was represented as driving a chariot, and 
Pollux always appeared with his fists doubled 
up for a fight. And the different idols or 



Figure-Heads. 151 

images of these gods, always represented 
them in their own peculiar manner. The 
helmet was the sign of Minerva; the sceptre 
was the sign of Jupiter ; the trident was the 
sign of Neptune ; the chariot was the sign of 
Castor; and the boxing gloves were the sign 
of his twin brother, Pollux. 

We can not tell just what this sign was, 
that was on the ship from Alexandria, in 
which St. Paul sailed from Melita. But, 
whatever the sign was, it did not stand for it- 
self; it stood for these twin gods, Castor and 
Pollux. All signs, symbols, figure-heads, and 
flags stand for something else. The Ameri- 
can flag is only a piece of red-white-and-blue 
bunting, and yet it stands for the union of 
states, which make up the Kepublic of our 
land. The red flag of England, with its St. 
Andrew's cross, represents the union of Eng- 
land, Ireland, and Scotland, which make up 
the Kingdom of Great Britain. And in the 
same way, the American Eagle stands for 
America, and the Lion stands for John Bull, 
or England. These signs or symbols do not 



152 The Interpreter's House. 

stand for themselves; they represent other 
people. 

There was a very humorous clergyman 
once, who used to do odd things, and get 
a great deal of fun out of those things 
which troubled and perplexed other people. 
Among the poor people in his parish was a 
sort of half-witted man named John McKay. 

John used to keep coming to the minister 
for money, and for work all the time. He 
would spend the money as soon as it was 
given to him, and never did the work rightly. 
After trying all sorts of ways to make the 
man go rightly, as you try to fix a clock that 
stops or runs too slow or too fast, the min- 
ister gave up in despair. At last he said, 
" Well, John, IVe made up my mind to 
give you three dollars a month, on these 
two conditions, if you will promise to keep 
them. I am going to pay you simply to be 
a figure-head in my church. You're a wise- 
looking man, John," he continued; "that is 
when you keep your big round spectacles on ; 
and you look very much like Rev. Dr. Jones. 



Figure-Heads. 153 

Now, John, you are to take your place in 
the front seat in the gallery, and are to sit 
leaning forward, looking at me all the time 
I am preaching. You see the people down- 
stairs will all think that you are Kev. Dr. 
Jones, from the divinity school, and when 
they see you in the gallery, listening so at- 
tentively to me, all through my sermon, they 
will think that there must be really some- 
thing very fine in it, and they will listen 
too. That is one condition. The other con- 
dition is, that you are never to come to me 
for any more money. You are only a figure- 
head, you are only a decoy duck, to make the 
other people listen; figure-heads and decoy 
ducks never speak, they simply look pleas- 
ant." So John consented to take three dol- 
lars a month simply to be a figure-head, and 
represent a certain doctor of divinity from the 
seminary; and the minister said the money 
was well spent, for he was always sure, on 
the rainiest day, to have one wise-looking, 
attentive listener, in the gallery. 

John McKay was a figure-head and a de- 



154 The Interpreter's House. 

coy duck That is, he didn't represent him- 
self — he represented somebody else. A fig- 
ure-head on a ship stands for, or is the sign 
of, the person or thing after which it is 
named. The sign or figure of Castor and 
Pollux, was the representation of Castor and 
Pollux in some way, on this Alexandrian 
ship. A decoy duck is only the wooden 
representation of a duck, put in the water, 
on purpose to deceive the ducks as they 
fly over it, and make them want to alight, 
and join what seems to be the other ducks 
in the water. So I say that the third lesson 
this subject teaches us is, that figure-heads 
represent other people. 

Now, dear children, don't imitate other 
people, except in trying to be good; try to 
be yourself, and develop the powers God 
has given you, without striving to be like 
other people. 

Some years ago there were people who 
thought they looked like Napoleon Bona- 
parte: and they used to fold their arms, 
and look from under their eyebrows, and 



Figure-Heads. 155 

let a lock of hair come down on their fore- 
heads, just as Napoleon used to do. Some 
time ago there were a number of young min- 
isters in England, who imitated a certain 
distinguished preacher there. They used to 
speak like him, and make gestures like him, 
and imitated him in every way. And a 
certain very bright author said of these 
vain young men that they "imitated the 
contortions of the sybil, but lacked her in- 
spiration." 

You know in old times in Greece, when 
people would go up to the shrines of the 
oracles, to consult the priestesses of Apollo, 
these sybils, or priestesses, would sit upon a 
tripod, over an opening in a cavern, from 
which ascended the smoke or vapor of what 
was supposed to be the lower world. Then 
the intoxicated priestess, breathing these 
fumes, would rattle off her answers, mak- 
ing at the same time the most astonishing 
gestures and contortions. So it was easy 
enough to imitate the contortions of the 
priestess, — any body could go through these 



156 The Interpreter's House. 

outward pranks, — but it was not possible 
for every body to speak, as she was speaking, 
under what was supposed to be an inspi- 
ration from the gods. 

Simon Peter once said to Jesus, " Lord, and 
what shall this man do ? " looking around, at 
the same time, to the disciple John. Our 
Lord had just been telling St. Peter what 
he was to do, and Peter supposed that be- 
cause he was to do a certain thing, his 
friend and companion, John, must do the 
same thing. But Jesus said, "If I will that 
he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? 
Follow thou me." What Jesus meant by 
these words was this — Peter must do his 
work in his way, and John must do his 
work in his own way; neither of them was 
to imitate the other. Simon Peter was soon 
to die a cruel death, and it might be that 
John was to live on and on, until Jesus 
should come again a second time; but nei- 
ther of them could do the other's work : each 
disciple was to follow his Master, but neither 
of them was to imitate the other. 



Figure-Heads. 157 

There was a boy once, who began to read 
the biographies of some of the great and 
good men, in the Christian Church. He 
thought it would be a good thing to be like 
them. So he began to be like Henry Mar- 
tyn, for his was the first biography he read. 
He began to keep a diary, and put down 
every thing in it that he thought was relig- 
ious. He bought a book of prayers, and 
read for an hour every day in his Bible, 
and tried to do just what Henry Martyn, 
the missionary to India, did. At last his 
mother sent for the doctor. "Jamie was not 
well," she said. The doctor felt his pulse, 
and looked at his tongue, and gave him 
some medicine. In a day or two, he came 
to see him again; but still he was not 
well; something was the matter with Jamie. 
"What could it be?" the doctor asked. 
At last the doctor inquired what he had 
been reading and studying; and then it all 
came out. He was unwell from too much 
biography; his diary, and his imitation of 
the life of the great missionary were too 



158 The Interpreter's House. 

much for him. He was trying to imitate 
the life and feelings of another, and it had 
actually made him sick. 

If any of you children have ever read that 
very funny book, called "Alice's Adventures 
in Wonderland," you will remember how it 
was that Alice asked the Mock Turtle, when 
he was dancing with the Griffin on the sand, 
why it was, that he was crying all the time 
he was dancing. 

"I am crying," replied the Mock Turtle, 
"to think that after all that I can do, I 
can never become a real turtle" 

Children, be real children — be real men 
and women; don't be mock turtles, or mere 
decoy ducks, or wooden figure-heads, rep- 
resenting other people. 



IV. 



The fourth and last lesson this subject 
teaches us is — that figure-heads shoiv us our 
ruling ideas. 

When a man honors God's name, and God's 



Figure-Heads. 159 

word, and his day, the ruling idea in that 
man's life is reverence for God and obedience 
to his will. But when a man swears, and 
blasphemes, and disobeys God's laws, we 
know that the ruling principle in that 
man's heart is sin. 

I remember a minister, up in the Adiron- 
dack country, who preached to the fisher- 
men and country people in those back woods. 
He was preaching about the Christian, shin- 
ing as a light in the midst of a wicked 
and perverse generation. It was a very 
rough-looking congregation, and this minis- 
ter was trying to get these people to make 
a profession of their faith in God. At last 
he said, "My brethren, I went down to 
Keeseville the other week, and there I saw 
a new shop. I couldn't tell what kind of 
a store it was. At first I thought it was a 
grocery shop, and then I thought it was an 
apothecary's shop, and then again it looked 
something like a hardware store. At last I 
went in, and the proprietor came forward 
and said, 'Well, elder, how do you like our 



160 The Interpreter's House. 

new store?' 'First-rate,' said I; 'only, neigh- 
bor, why don't you hang your sign out, so 
as to let a person know what kind of a 
shop you keep?' Now, my brethren," he 
concluded, "why don't you hang your sign 
out? Why don't you let the world know 
who your Master is? Why don't you 'come 
out on the Lord's side'?" 

" To let, inquire within," is a sign we 
often see on houses which are advertised to 
rent. This means that we can find out all 
we want to know about the house, if we will 
only take the trouble to inquire. It is an 
outward and visible sign of an inward fact; 
but the outward sign — the notice — leads us 
to the inward fact, the state and terms of 
the house. And so it is with all signs and 
symbols ; they not only represent other things 
than themselves, they show us the ruling 
ideas or principles of which they are only 
the images. 

A drum-major, waving his wand at the 
head of a band of music in a street pro- 
cession, does not only represent himself, — 



Figure-Heads. 161 

he is a pretty fine figure-head to be sure, 
— but he represents the ruling idea of the 
band of music, which is harmony and head- 
ship. He waves his gold-headed staff* back 
and forth, and has a great deal of pomp and 
parade; but, after all, the drum-major of a 
band, and the leader of an orchestra, repre- 
sent something more than themselves — they 
represent the order, time, and measure of 
the music which the band or the orchestra 
play. 

I suppose this sign of Castor and Pollux, 
on the ship in which St. Paul sailed for 
Rome, showed the ruling idea of the per- 
sons who owned the ship. They believed in 
the gods of horsemanship and boxing. You 
know there are men who read and think of 
nothing but horse-racing, and boat-racing, 
and boxing exhibitions, and dog shows. It 
is very surprising how the fact of being 
much with horses and horse-jockeys spoils 
men. You put men and horses together, 
and let them talk and think of nothing but 
horses and horse-racings, and the men will 
11 



162 The Interpreter's House. 

grow depraved, and the horses will grow 
better. The horses seem to take off the 
qualities of the men, just as iron will take 
off the qualities of the magnet. 

I fear that "the sign of Castor and Pol- 
lux," in St. Paul's day, had degenerated 
into a meaning, something like our horse- 
racing and boxing and boat-racing exhibi- 
tions, where men drink and bet and swear. 
The ship was named after the head horse- 
man and the head boxer in the world. That 
was, after all, the ruling idea which the sign 
of Castor and Pollux meant, at least in St. 
Paul's day. 

The sign of the anchor means hope, we 
know, and the image of a heart means love, 
and the cross means faith; all these signs 
show us the ruling ideas of those things for 
which they stand. 

And we, my dear children, ought to repre- 
sent something real and true in our lives; 
for our lives must mean something. They 
must represent that which is evil, or that 
which is good, or that which is poor and 



Figure-Heads. 163 

weak, and has got no character at all. Our 
lives represent that which is behind our lives, 
— -just as the chameleon reflects the color of 
the substance he is on, and the food he is 
eating. Therefore we ought to be careful 
how we live and think and act, for our 
lives are signs of that which is within, in 
the soul, just as the sign and the figure-head 
in front of the shop, tell us the character of 
the store, and what we may expect to find 
there. 

Remember, then, these four lessons of our 
subject, — 

1st. Figure-heads are wooden things. 

2d. Figure-heads are for ornament. 

3d. Figure-heads represent other people; and, 

4th. Figure-heads shoiv tcs our ruling ideas. 

Every nation has its sign or motto. In old 
times every great family used to have its 
sign, or armorial bearing as it was called. 
This was called heraldry because it was an- 
nounced or called out by a herald. The 



164 The Interpreter's House. 

motto of the great earl of Douglas, was a 
hard motto. It was this, " Thou shalt want, 
ere I want" This was written on his shield, 
and over his coat of arms. 

Dear children, what is our sign or motto 
— the sign of our faith, the name of our ship 
in which we are to sail towards heaven ? It 
is not any heathen name, such as this " sign 
of Castor and Pollux." It is the cross of 
Jesus Christ our Saviour, which is the Chris- 
tian's sign, for it is only by this that we can 
be saved. 

In Hoc Signo — " In this sign " we conquer. 



VI. 

ealous j. 



JEALOUSY. 

"Thon never gavest me a kid."— St. Luke xv. 29. 

SUCCESS very often makes us selfish. 
Sorrow very often makes us sympa- 
thizing. When the first Napoleon was at 
the height of his power, he said, "It is a 
saying that man proposes and God disposes, 
but I shall do both." When he was a sad 
and lonely exile at St. Helena, and felt that 
he could no longer propose for himself, or 
dispose of his fate, he felt very kindly and 
very much softened towards his enemies, 
and those who were opposed to him. Suc- 
cess made him selfish: sorrow made him 
sympathizing; and this is the way it is 
with the most of us. We read in one place 
in the Bible that " Jeshurun waxed fat, and 
kicked." This means that when his spir- 
its were proud and exalted he rebelled. A 



168 The Interpreter's House. 

starved horse does not feel like kicking or 
running away; it is the horse which has 
been fed high with oats, who paws the 
ground and carries on like a wild thing. 

It is a great thing in this world to stand 
up under our troubles and sorrows; it is 
a great thing to be able to stand our suc- 
cesses, and not to be made proud and self- 
ish and unsympathizing. 

We all know this parable where our text 
is found to-day. It is the story of the Prod- 
igal Son. 

When the publicans and sinners, those 
who were supposed to be the wickedest peo- 
ple in the land, came to hear Jesus speak, 
he told them a story to suit their case. Je- 
sus always chose his parables to suit his 
hearers. These miserable people, these sin- 
ners, who were all outside the Church, want- 
ed to hear what Jesus would have to say 
to them. Then Jesus told them the parable 
of the Prodigal Son, beginning with those 
wonderful words, "A certain man had two 
sons." 



Jealousy. 169 

We all know this story. The elder broth- 
er staid at home with his father, and was 
a dutiful son; the younger brother asked 
his father to divide the family property, and 
then he went far away from home, and fell 
into sin and wickedness, and came to want. 
At last he resolved to go back to his father. 
He confessed his sins, and asked for forgive- 
ness, and was welcomed by his father, back 
to the old home ; but when the elder brother 
drew near the house, and heard the sounds 
of music and joy, and found out that there 
was a feast for his long-lost prodigal brother, 
instead of being glad and thankful that the 
lost one was found, he was angry, and would 
not go in. Then when the father went out 
to beg him to come in, this elder brother 
showed a very wrong spirit. Instead of 
thinking of his brother, he thought only of 
himself; instead of being rejoiced that the 
poor wanderer had been found, he thought 
only of the expense of the feast which was 
given to him. He said to his father, "Lo, 
these many years do I serve thee, neither 



170 The Interpreter's House. 

transgressed I at any time thy command- 
ment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, 
that I might make merry with my friends." 
Now this elder brother was jealous, and 
the subject of our sermon to-day is — 

JEALOUSY. 

It was not to teach the poor sinners, who 
came to hear him, the sinfulness of jealousy, 
that Jesus told them this parable of the Prod- 
igal Son ; this is only one of the side lessons 
of the subject. Our Lord wanted to explain 
to these poor sinners, that they were like the 
younger son of this story. He wanted to tell 
them that their Father in heaven, was ready 
and willing to receive them, just as soon as 
they would turn, and repent, and go back 
to their loving Father. But, as he went on 
explaining their state, this lesson of jealousy 
came out; for the Jews were like this eldest 
son in the parable. They had been God's 
chosen people before, but now that the out- 
side world was being called in to share in 
the blessings of the light and knowledge 




I. H. 



P 170. 



Jealousy. 171 

of God, this dreadful spirit of jealousy ap- 
peared. The Jews were like the eldest son 
in this story: the Gentiles were like the poor 
Prodigal; for the Jews were jealous of the 
Gentiles and did not want to have them 
brought in to the kingdom of Jesus. 

So, then, it is about Jealousy I w^ant to 
speak to you to-day. 

It is a hard, selfish, miserable spirit, and 
it will ruin our characters unless we get it 
out by the roots. It makes us cold and un- 
sympathizing, and it is a dreadful curse in 
any life, to have this spirit of jealousy there. 

Jealousy is like a disease, or a defect of 
vision. We think that the trouble is out- 
side of us, with other people and other 
things; but, after all, the trouble is in our- 
selves, and not in other people. 

I read the other day, in a paper, a story 
which, though it was not true, was funny. 
This story said, that a poor farmer let out 
half of his barn to a carpenter, because 
the times were so hard. He had great dif- 
ficulty in buying grain and hay for his horse; 



172 The Interpreter's House. 

so he used to give his horse the shavings 
which the carpenter made from planing, and 
then he tied green spectacles on his horse's 
head, so that the horse saw the green shav- 
ings and took them for grass ! Well, my 
dear children, this spirit of jealousy is just 
like looking through green glasses; every 
thing looks colored. You know jealousy is 
called a "green-eyed monster." It makes 
every thing look distorted and ugly. Or 
it is just like the chills and fever, or the 
ague and malaria, which we have in some 
parts of the country. When a person has 
the ague, or is suffering from malaria, every 
thing looks dark and dreadful. I remember 
a man who was working for me once, who 
was seized with a chill, or fit of ague. The 
day was very warm, but he chattered as if 
he was sitting on an iceberg, though I took 
him to the kitchen fire, and gave him hot 
drinks and hot bottles, and wrapped him 
up in heavy blankets. The trouble was not 
with the day or the work; the trouble was 
all in himself. The disease was in his very 



Jealousy. 173 

bones, and it made every thing look black, 
and feel cold and shivering to him. 

And this is just the way it is with jeal- 
ousy. It is in us, just as a disease or an 
ague is in us. It makes us feel cold towards 
those about us; it makes every thing look 
green and different, just as the shavings in 
the horse-trough, looked green to that poor 
lean horse with the green glasses on. 

There is danger of our feeling jealous to 
those about us in our every-day life ; but the 
greatest danger of all is when we find it at 
work in our homes. Even the brethren of 
Jesus were jealous of him. They wouldn't 
believe that he was a prophet, and could do 
any great works, so that Jesus himself said, 
11 A prophet is not without honor, save in his 
own country and among his own kinsfolk." 
Our Lord meant by this, to teach us the fact 
which we all feel at times in our own souls — 
that we are very apt to look at our rela- 
tives through the green glasses of jealousy. 
Look for instance at the story of Joseph and 
his brethren. We are told that they hated 



174 The Interpreter's House. 

him because of his dreams. It was jealousy 
which made them put him into the pit, 
and then sell him for thirty pieces of sil- 
ver, to the Midianite merchantmen. It was 
jealousy which made them get up the cruel 
story, about his being torn in pieces by the 
wild beasts which were in the desert, and 
then show their father his coat of many 
colors, all stained with blood. They could 
not see any thing good in their younger 
brother; they had on the green glasses of 
this cruel curse; they had this dreadful ma- 
laria, this ague-like hatred, deep in their 
souls. All they thought of was themselves 
first of all. They were like the elder broth- 
er in the parable of the Prodigal Son, who 
only thought about himself, and, instead of 
bidding his brother a glad welcome home, 
only reproached his father with these selfish, 
jealous words, — "Thou never gavest me a 
kid." 



Jealousy. 175 



First of all, then, I would say — that jeal- 
ousy makes us unhappy. 

There is no pleasure in being jealous ; there 
is no comfort or joy in picking out the 
flaws in other people's characters or actions. 
When this elder brother, in the parable, said, 
" Thou never gavest me a kid," he was think- 
ing first of all of himself; it made him un- 
happy that his father, and the whole family, 
were happy over something in which he did 
not have a share. He was thinking only 
about himself, not about his poor forlorn 
brother, who had come home again; and it 
always makes us unhappy to be thinking 
continually about ourselves. Jealous people 
always want to be first in every thing, and it 
is because other people are praised or ad- 
mired, that they show this jealous spirit, with 
reference to them. 

The old Italian painters, who were many 
of them very vain and jealous men, used 
to paint themselves in among the saints, and 



176 The Interpreter's House. 

then would paint the faces of their rivals, or 
their enemies among the wicked. There was 
one man in Rome whom the great painter 
Michael Angelo hated very much, so he 
painted his face down in one corner of hell, 
in his famous picture of the Last Judgment, 
in the Vatican at Rome. 

There was a certain French painter- who 
was very jealous of his companions. One 
day he was showing off their paintings in a 
picture gallery — pointing out the defects and 
flaws in them to a friend. At last he said, 

"Zere air only zree great painters left in 
ze world now." 

"Who are they?" inquired his friend. 

"I am one," replied the artist; " I have 
forgotten ze names of ze uzzer tivo ! " 

Now, my dear children, such jealousy as 
this, makes us very unhappy in our own 
souls. Only to be thinking of ourselves, 
wanting to be first at all times and in 
all places, being envious and jealous of 
other people all the time, is very poor, mis- 
erable work. Children, who go out to com- 



Jealousy. 177 

panies and little parties, can never be happy 
if they keep thinking all the time, "She is 
dressed prettier than I am"; or, "She re- 
ceived more compliments and favors than 
I did." Why, dear children, this spirit of 
jealousy has made homes unhappy, and has 
separated families, and has divided churches, 
and put nations at variance with each other, 
and has brought on cruel wars, in which 
thousands of poor soldiers have been slain 
or mangled for life. In the days of Queen 
Anne in England, there were terrible battles 
between the English and the French, simply 
because certain women who influenced the 
duke of Marlborough, the great English 
general, and certain women who influenced 
the French King Louis XIV., were jealous 
of each other, and wanted to have their own 
way. Perhaps you may have read those 
lines by the poet Southey, beginning, 

"It was a summer's evening, 
Old Caspar's work was done, 
And he before his cottage door 
Was sitting in the sun." 



178 The Interpreter's House. 

His little grand-children in their plays had 
found a skull, and they wanted to know what 
it meant. And then he told them about the 
dreadful battle of Blenheim, which had been 
fought over the meadows before them, and 
said to little Peterkin and Wilhelmine, when 
they asked why people killed each other in 
battle, 

"Things like this you know must be 
At every famous victory." 

And this was all because of jealousy. 
There is one book in the Bible which gives 
us a wonderful story about jealousy. It is 
the book of Esther. Ahasuerus, the king 
of Persia, honored his prime minister, Ha- 
inan, and made him the greatest man in 
his kingdom, next to himself. But there 
was one man of whom Haman was jealous. 
This was just like having the green glasses 
on all the time ; this was like having a chill 
in the bones, when the weather was warm. 
Haman went home from a banquet given to 
him by the king, "and sent for his friends, 



Jealousy. 179 

and Zeresh his wife." And, we read that 
" Haman told them of the glory of his 
riches, and the multitude of his children, 
and all the things wherein the king had 
promoted him, and how he had advanced 
him above the princes and servants of the 
king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther 
the queen did let no man come in with 
the king unto the banquet that she had 
prepared but myself; and to-morrow am I 
invited unto her also with the king. Yet 
all this availeth me nothing, so long as I 
see Mordecai the Jew, sitting at the king's 
gate." Now this was exactly the same spirit, 
which the elder brother had in the parable 
of the Prodigal Son, when he said, "Thou 
never gavest me a kid." It made Haman 
so unhappy to see this poor old Jew, Mor- 
decai, that nothing else in the world de- 
lighted him, so long as he thought of that 
one man of whom he was jealous. 

You all know the rest of the story — how 
he asked the king to build a gallows fifty 
cubits high, on which to hang Mordecai, 



180 The Interpreter's House. 

and how at the last, he himself was hanged 
on the very gallows he had built for his 
rival. Depend upon it, my dear children, 
jealousy makes us all very unhappy in our 
own souls. 



II. 



Secondly: Jealousy makes other people un- 
happy. 

It is not pleasant to other people to be 
always talking about our ill -health, our 
headaches, or bad feelings; other people 
get tired of this kind of talk. I know an 
old man who, when I go to see him, always 
begins to talk about the last ride he expects 
soon to take to Mount Auburn in a hearse. 
He has talked this way for fifteen years, 
and yet he is in very good health to-day ! 
Now it makes other people unhappy, for us 
to be always talking of such unpleasant 
things. And it makes other people unhap- 
py when we give way to this wretched feel- 
ing of jealousy. Just think what a cold, wet 



Jealousy. 181 

blanket, this elder brother threw upon that 
supper party. The minstrels were playing, 
and the young people were dancing, and 
every one was delighted to have the poor 
Prodigal home again, and a tear of joy was 
in the old father's eye, and a tremulous tone 
of gladness in his voice — and then this jeal- 
ous elder brother cast a gloom over the 
whole affair, by being angry, and not going 
in, as he sulked off by himself, muttering 
these words, which showed the spirit he 
was in, "Thou never gavest me a kid." 
How unhappy this spirit made them all 
feel ! It was like the ghost of the mur- 
dered Banquo, sitting at the feast of Mac- 
beth, as you will read it some day in Shake- 
speare's play of Macbeth. 

This jealousy gets into families and makes 
coolness first, and then feuds afterwards. 
Sometimes it takes generations for it to get 
out of the family blood. It is the very 
spirit of the Evil One; it brings a curse 
with it, whenever it is indulged in. You 
know there is an old saying, that "curses, 



182 The Interpreter's House. 

like chickens, always come home to roost." 
Did you ever watch a lot of chickens around 
a barnyard? They go off very bravely in 
the morning, and you think that is the last 
of them, and that they will surely never get 
back. But as soon as the afternoon sun be- 
gins to slant, the old rooster cocks his eye 
up at the sun, and stretches his neck in the 
tall grass, and gives a crow and a clutter- 
ing sort of talk, and appears to be very 
much alarmed, and then they move along 
to the hen-roost, and are safely in their 
places on the roosts by sundown. And just 
as surely as chickens find their way back to 
the barnyard, the evil things that we do in 
this world return to trouble and to plague us. 

There is the story of Homer's Iliad. It is 
all about the curse of jealousy. The king- 
dom of Troy was destroyed, and thousands 
of lives were lost, all because Paris, the Tro- 
jan prince, was jealous that Menelaus, the 
Grecian leader, should have the beautiful 
Helen, whom he wanted for his wife. 

Last summer, when I was in the north of 



Jealousy. 183 

Scotland, I went to the famous pass of Glen- 
coe, away up in the Highlands. It is a 
dark and gloomy valley, with overhanging 
rocks, and deep chasms extending far into 
the mountains. A more lonely, bleak, and 
desolate valley it would be hard to imagine. 
It was in this secluded valley that the clan of 
the MacDonalds was massacred by the Cam- 
erons in the time of George III. These feuds 
and struggles between the Scotch tribes, 
were all brought on by envyings, and bick- 
erings and jealousies. One chieftain became 
jealous of another, and one tribe would envy 
another, until at last, in their savage hates, 
they would try to massacre and exterminate 
each other. And all this was because of 
this wretched spirit of jealousy, which made 
them unhappy themselves and made the 
other tribes unhappy, a spirit which is best 
expressed by this complaint of the elder 
brother, when he said in his pettishness 
and envy, "Thou never gavest me a kid." 



184 The Interpreter's House. 

III. 

Thirdly: Jealousy grows unless it is plucked 
up by the roots. 

You know there are some things which 
seem to grow of themselves, without being 
planted or cared for, and if you cut them 
down, they only grow up the faster. I can 
remember, as a boy, playing hide-and-seek 
in the tall asparagus tops, which were just 
like a little wilderness of green. And the 
more we used to cut them down with our 
sickles, — for we used to play that we were 
United States cavalry charging on the In- 
dians, — the thicker the asparagus seemed to 
grow in two or three weeks' time. And so 
it is with the wild vines, that grow in the 
country lanes, and over rocks, and stone 
walls. Nobody ever planted those wild black- 
berry and raspberry vines, and yet how 
sweetly the berries taste, and how vigorously 
the vines grow ; and the only way to destroy 
them is to pluck them up by the roots, not 
merely to cut them down by the branches. 



Jealousy. 185 

And jealousy grows in this same way, un- 
less it is plucked up by the roots, and taken 
out of the nature. It hurts us and keeps us 
miserable, just in the way a growling tooth 
does. We all know how miserable it is to 
have a growling, aching tooth. First we try 
to put cotton in it ; then we put warm water 
there ; then we nurse it up, and put laudanum 
and camphor on it; then we sit before the 
fire, and tie up our faces in a cloth, and say, 
— "Dear me! Dear me!" "Oh my face!" 
"Oh how it hurts!" "What shall I do!" 
All this time our face is as large, and round, 
and swollen, as the face of the man in the 
moon when the moon is full. And then, at 
last, after we have suffered days and nights 
of pain and agony, we make up our minds 
to go to the dentist, and he puts an ugly, 
black-looking instrument into our mouth, and 
there is one cr-u-n-c-h, and out the old root 
comes. But it's better, after all, having one 
hollow place in one's head, than to have all 
that burning, shooting pain there. 

And, my dear children, the only thing to 



186 The Interpreter's House. 

do with jealousy, which is just like a bad 
tooth in one's jaw, is to pluck it up, and cast 
it out by the roots. It is like a tumor that 
will kill us unless it is taken away by the 
surgeon's knife; it is like the mortification 
which sets in after some broken limb or 
some wound ; it will kill our soul just as the 
tumor or the inflammation, if not checked, 
will destroy our body. It does not stand 
still: it either grows worse, or it stops be- 
cause it is taken out of our system altogether. 
There was a very humorous clergyman in 
England once, named Sydney Smith. He 
was always saying bright and witty things. 
One time he was speaking of a certain noble- 
man, who never could see any thing fun- 
ny, and had to have every joke explained. 
"Ah," said Sydney Smith, "it takes a surgi- 
cal operation to get a joke into his brain." 
And, my dear children, sometimes it takes 
almost a surgical operation, to get the spirit 
of jealousy out of some people, it is imbedded 
so deeply in their nature. And yet we must 
suffer something, and make every sacrifice 



Jealousy. 187 

to get it out; for unless we do pluck it out 
by the roots, it will live and grow and make 
headway in our souls. Our Lords words are 
— and they sound very much like a surgi- 
cal operation — " If thy right eye offend thee, 
pluck it out, and cast it from thee . . . 
and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, 
and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for 
thee that one of thy members should perish, 
and not that thy whole body should be cast 
into hell." 



IV. 



Fourthly : Jealousy makes us miserable in our 
old age. 

You know how it is in the country at 
harvest-time. There are the stalks of yel- 
low corn, and the great red pumpkins ly- 
ing over the field. Every thing is in readi- 
ness for winter, by the time November comes. 
If there is no harvest by that time, there 
will be none afterwards. Winter is no time 
for a harvest: the ground is hard and the 



188 The Interpreter's House. 

weather is cold; snow covers the fields and 
the ponds are all frozen. The poet Thomson, 
in his famous poem on the Seasons, says, in 
describing winter, — 

"How dead the vegetable kingdom lies! 
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends 
His desolate domain." 

And the world around us, my dear chil- 
dren, with all the moods and changes which 
we see in nature, is only a picture of our 
own souls. " Whatsoever a man soweth, 
that shall he also reap." What we want 
to do when we are young, and when we are 
growing into middle age, is to learn how to 
grow old wisely. If we are cross, and crab- 
bed and irritable, if we offend our friends and 
neighbors and relatives, they will leave us 
to ourselves, and we will have a lonely time 
of it, when we come to be old. For our par- 
ents must die and leave us; our brothers and 
sisters will have their own families and af- 
fairs to look after; the friends of our youth 
will be scattered, and if we do not plant the 



Jealousy. 189 

seeds of love, and kindness, and good-will, 
in those who are about us now, what can 
we expect from strangers in our old age? 

This is our spring-time. It is the spring- 
time of our youth, and if we do not plant in 
the spring, we can have no harvest in our 
autumn days, and we can not begin to sow 
in the winter of life ! 

When Queen Elizabeth of England came 
to die, she was the most wretched of mortals. 
She cried out from her death-bed, as she was 
propped up among the rich, soft pillows, 
"Millions of money for an inch of time." 
She had been a very jealous queen and 
woman. She was jealous of Mary Queen 
of Scots, and she was jealous of the earl of 
Essex, who was once her lover. She signed 
the death warrant of each of these poor vic- 
tims, and they were beheaded under her 
sanction. She was jealous of the great earl 
of Leicester, and of the famous Lord Bacon. 
And this spirit of jealousy made her the most 
wretched and unhappy of beings, when she 
grew old, and came to die. For the spirit 



190 The Interpreter's House. 

that keeps us thinking, first and foremost, at 
all times and in all places, of ourselves; the 
spirit which declares in the midst of other 
people's happiness, " Thou never gavest me a 
kid," — can not but make us miserable and un- 
happy, when we grow old and come to die. 

Now then, dear children, get this malaria, 
this green-eyed monster, jealousy, out of you. 
Pray to God to help you to overcome it, just 
as you may pray him to help you at some 
recitation or school examination. 

Do this because, 

1st. Jealousy will make you unhappy. 

2d. It will make others unhappy. 

3d. It will grow on you unless it is checked 
at the roots; and, 

4th. It will make you miserable in your old 
age. 

So then, dear children, I beg you to get 
it out of your characters, through the help of 
God, saying, as you struggle to overcome it. 

"Doivn with it, down with it, even to the 
ground." 



VII. 



Sosjniu afhr Storm, 



SUNSHINE AFTER STORM. 

"Clear shining after rain."— II Sam. xxiii. 4. 

^"'HESE words are found in the last song 
^J^ or poem King David wrote. David 
was a very remarkable man; he seemed to 
be great in every thing he undertook, and 
even when he went wrong, he went astray 
as a great sinner. He was a good soldier, 
and knew all about camps and armies and 
battles; he was a great king and a wonder- 
ful writer of psalms. David was the most in- 
teresting poet in the Old Testament. Think 
how we read and sing and pray, over and 
over again, the beautiful psalms that he has 
written. Only think how many people have 
been helped and comforted by the words 
which he has written, and how many dying 



194 The Interpreter's House. 

ones have listened to those words, which 
have been to them the last familiar words 
they have remembered upon earth, "The 
Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want"; 
or those opening words of the 51st Psalm, 
"Have mercy upon me, oh God, according 
to thy loving-kindness: according unto the 
multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out 
my transgressions. " 

In this chapter, where our text is found, 
we have David's last message to his people, 
and his last profession of faith in the God 
of his youth. He says, "The Spirit of the 
Lord spake by me, and his word was in my 
tongue. The God of Israel said, the rock of 
Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men 
must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And 
he shall be as the light of the morning, 
when the sun riseth, even a morning with- 
out clouds ; as the tender grass springing out 
of the earth by 

Clear Shining after Rain. 



Sunshine after Storm. 195 

What King David meant was, tliat any- 
one who tried to rule men, must bring just 
such kind and tender influences to bear 
upon them, as God brought to bear upon the 
ground, when the green grass appeared out 
of the earth, by clear shining after rain. 
You know how it is in the spring-time. 
First there are the ice and snow of Febru- 
ary; then, there is the hard, frosted ground 
of March; then, come the gentle rains of 
April, and after these the flowers of May, 
and the blossoms of June. 

But I do not want to-day to talk to you 
about King David or the tender grass of 
spring. I only want to show you how these 
words came to be written, and then come to 
the subject of this sermon which is — 

Sunshine after Storm. 
i. 

First of all, then, we find that, clear shining 
after rain, is the law of nature. 



196 The Interpreter's House. 

You know what is meant by the law of 
the state, or the law of the city, or the law 
of the school. It is that upon which the 
state or the city or the school depends. If 
the laws are broken, there can be no true 
state, or city, or school. 

A boy once said to his little brother, 

"Willie, go down-stairs instantly, and bring 
me the hammer." 

44 No, I won't," said Willie. 

"Yes, sir, you shall," replied his brother. 
" I command you to do it." 

The boy had heard his father use these 
words to him. 

" You haven't any right to command me 
to go," said Willie, "for I'm not your son 
and need not obey you ; but if you say 
'please,' I'll go, because you're my brother, 
and I am willing to help you." 

Now, Willie was right. His brother had 
no right to command him, but he had a right 
to ash him. But the state, and the city, and 
the school, have a right to command us to do 
certain things, and we will be doing wrong 



Sunshine after Storm. 197 

if we disobey. So when I say that " clear 
shining after rain" is one of the laws of 
nature, I mean that it is a principle or com- 
mandment, which God has planted in the 
world with regard to the weather, that after 
it has been storming, it must clear up again. 
God's laws are like an endless chain. You 
know how one of these endless chains hangs 
over a well, and brings the water up out of 
the spout by a series of knots. Well, it is 
very much in nature like this endless chain 
over the well: the sun draws the water from 
the ocean; the clouds receive these watery 
particles ; the clouds are driven by the radia- 
tion or expanse of the heated air at the trop- 
ics; the clouds come together and get heavy; 
then the rain comes down on the moun- 
tains; the little rivulets seek the rivers; the 
rivers flow to the ocean; and then the sun 
draws the water up into the sky again, and 
the same thing is repeated. So, then, we 
find that sunshine after storm, is a law of 
the natural world. God has written this 
law in the very nature of the world. God 



198 The Interpreter's House. 

doesn't speak through the atmosphere, and 
say, "Please let there be sunshine after 
storm," God commands it, because he knows 
what is best, and because he has a right to 
command. Just as he said, " Let there be 
light," and there was light, so he says, or 
writes it in the laws of the world, " Let there 
be sunshine after storm," and sure enough, 
we find in King David's words, that there is 
always "clear shining after rain? 

Perhaps we don't stop to think of these 
things as we sit in our houses and live in- 
doors. But people who live much out in 
the open air, and learn to study the signs 
of the sky and the weather, get into the 
way of knowing all about these things. 
Take a sailor, for instance. He doesn't need 
any barometer to tell him about the atmos- 
phere, or any indicator to tell him the way of 
the wind. He knows the meaning of every 
cloud in the sky and every ripple on the 
water. He does not need any maps of 
physical geography, to tell him about the 
different kinds of clouds in the sky; he 



Sunshine after Storm. 199 

knows them all by heart; and very fre- 
quently is quicker in detecting the coming 
change, than the captain's barometer which 
hangs so conspicuously in the cabin. 

People who live out in the open air, are 
always able to tell about the signs of the 
weather, and the meaning of the changes in 
the atmosphere. I remember once spend- 
ing a week in Derbyshire in England, where 
the bleak hills were dotted with white sheep. 
The shepherds with their Scotch collie dogs, 
would sit out all day long on the rocks, and 
under the trees, and very frequently at lamb- 
ing times, they would be up all night with 
the little lambs. Whenever I would ask one 
of these shepherds what he thought about 
the weather, it was always sure to be just as 
he had predicted. This was because these 
men had got into the way of studying out 
the laws of the weather and the clouds. 

You know there is at Washington, an office 
known as the Weather Bureau, and weather 
indications are sent into this office, from the 
Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic coast, 



200 The Interpreter's House. 

and from the lakes. The officer who has 
charge of this bureau, is sometimes called 
the "Clerk of the Weather," and sometimes 
he is known as "Old Probabilities," — just 
as at Christmas time we speak of "Old Santa 
Glaus" For all this weather business, though 
it seems very strange and mysterious, is based 
upon certain fixed laws, which are as sure 
and as unalterable as the rule of the multi- 
plication table, that two and two must make 
four, or that four and four must make eight. 
It seems as if the sun shone when it pleased, 
and as if the rain came without any law or 
order. Indeed it is very hard to think of 
there being any law at all about the weath- 
er. We say of a person that he is "as un- 
certain as the weather." It seems at times, 
as if the wind, and the rain, and the sky, and 
the sea, behaved like naughty children, who 
get moody and angry, and come to blows, 
and then have their long cry out. This 
world has its moods, just like any of us, when 
we are cross, or have a headache, or our shoe 
hurts us, or our dinner has disagreed with us. 



Sunshine after Storm. 201 

I am sure the way a thunder-storm begins to 
get surly and cross and angry, and answers 
back, and comes to blows with the lightning, 
and then cries its eyes out, and seems sorry, 
and promises to be good, and smiles itself 
out with a beautiful rainbow afterwards — is 
just like a naughty boy going through 
all the stages of his badness, until he is 
sweet and good again. And yet, though 
the rain and the sunshine seem to be the 
most uncertain things in the world, we find 
that they are governed and controlled by 
hidden laws, and that one of these is, that 
sunshine must come after a storm; or that 
clear shining comes after rain. 

And in this way, this law of nature, con- 
tained in this text of ours to-day, becomes a 
picture, or a map, or an object lesson, of the 
second truth of our subject. That truth is 
this — 



202 The Interpreter's House. 

II. 

Secondly: Clear shining after rain is the 
law of the souTs life. 

Sin and bad conduct are like the storms 
and bad weather of the world: pardon and 
peace of mind are like the clearing up after 
the shower; for we all have our moods and 
badness, just as the weather has. 

I have seen a little boy act like a rainy 
day. First he would fret and quarrel; then 
he would cry and carry on; then his lips 
would quiver, as he came to confess his 
wrong; and after this, the storm would all 
be over, and it would be clear shining after 
rain. 

You know how it is on an April day. The 
heavy thunder is heard, and the clouds gath- 
er ; the lightning flashes and the rain comes 
down in torrents; and then, all of a sudden, 
it stops raining, the sun comes out, the rain- 
bow is seen spanning the heavens, the crick- 
ets chirp, the birds sing, and every thing is 
fresh and beautiful and green again, "even 



Sunshine after Storm. 203 

as a morning without clouds: the tender 
grass springing out of the earth by clear 
shining after rain." 

Now this is the very picture of God's for- 
giveness of our sins. We say in one of our 
hymns, — 

"No sooner I my wound disclosed, 
The grief that tortured me within, 
But thy forgiveness interposed, 
And mercy's healing balm poured in." 

God's forgiveness of our sins, is just like 
the sunshine after the storm, of a rainy day. 
It drives away the fogs, and moods, and bad 
weather, in the soul. Just as there can be 
no clear, bright weather, until the sun comes 
out, so we can have no true peace of mind 
until we have confessed our faults to God, 
and to those whom we have sinned against. 

In the Middle Ages, when the lords and 
knights were always at war with each oth- 
er, one of them resolved to revenge himself 
on a neighbor who had offended him. It 
chanced that on the very evening when he 



204 The Interpreter's House. 

had made this resolution, he heard that his 
enemy was to pass near his castle, with only 
a very few men with him. It was a good 
opportunity to take his revenge, and he de- 
termined not to let it pass. He spoke of his 
plan in the presence of his chaplain, who 
tried in vain to persuade him to give it up. 
The good man said a great deal to the duke 
about the sin of what he was going to do, 
but in vain. At length, seeing that all his 
words had no effect, he said, " My lord, since 
I can not persuade you to give up this plan 
of yours, will you at least consent to come 
with me to the chapel, that we may pray 
together before you go?" The duke con- 
sented, and the chaplain and he kneeled to- 
gether in prayer. Then the mercy -loving 
Christian, said to the revengeful warrior, 
"Will you repeat after me, sentence by 
sentence, the prayer which our Lord Jesus 
Christ himself taught to his disciples ? " 

"I will do it," replied the duke. 

He did it accordingly. The chaplain said 
a sentence, and the duke repeated it, till he 



Sunshine after Storm. 205 

came to the petition, " Forgive us our tres- 
passes, as we forgive them that trespass 
against us." There the duke was silent. 

"My lord duke, you are silent," said the 
chaplain. "Will you be so good as to con- 
tinue to repeat the words after me, if you 
dare to do so? 'Forgive us our trespasses, 
as we forgive them that trespass against us.'" 

"I can not," replied the duke. 

" Well, God can not forgive you, for he 
has said so. He himself has given us this 
prayer. Therefore you must either give up 
your revenge, or give up saying this prayer ; 
for to ask God to pardon you, as you pardon 
others, is to ask him to take vengeance on 
you for all your sins. Go now, my lord, 
and meet your victim. God will meet you 
at the great day of judgment." 

The iron will of the duke was broken. 

"No," said he, "I will finish my prayer: 
'My God, my Father, pardon me; forgive me 
as I desire to forgive him who has offended 
me ; lead me not into temptation, but deliver 
me from evil ! ' " 



206 The Interpreter's House. 

"Amen," said the chaplain. 

" Amen," repeated the duke, who now un- 
derstood the Lord's Prayer better than he 
had ever done before, since he had learned 
to apply it to himself. 

My dear children, depend upon it, forgive- 
ness is the sunshine, after the storm in the 
soul. It is just like the clearing-up shower 
which ends the rain, and brings out the sun. 
When we have done wrong to our parents, or 
our brothers and sisters and friends, we can 
have no peace of mind, until we have con- 
fessed our faults, and have made it all right 
again with those whom we have injured. 
Boys call this "making up:" girls call it "kiss- 
ing and being friends again." It is the same 
thing in essence which we call forgiveness, 
when we say, in the Apostles' Creed, " I be- 
lieve in the forgiveness of sins." It is the 
clearing up of the soul after a storm — like 
the clear shining after rain. 

When the young monk, Martin Luther, lay 
in his cell at Erfurt, stricken with severe sick- 
ness, he felt the load of his sins so strongly, 



Sunshine after Storm. 207 

that it seemed to him as if he never could be 
saved, or enter heaven at last. All that he 
tried to do — all his prayers and works of 
penance — failed to bring him any peace of 
mind. At last, one day, an old monk, who 
lived in the monastery, came to see him. 
They wept together, and as the old monk 
tried to make his young companion find a 
way of escape from his fears, he asked Mar- 
tin to repeat with him the Apostles' Creed. 
When they came to the sentence " I believe 
in the forgiveness of sins," the young monk 
stopped. 

" ' The forgiveness of sins ! ' " he said. " Is 
it really true that God will take away my 
sins for the asking of it ? " 

" Yes, oh yes, Brother Martin ! " replied his 
old friend. "Do you not know what the 
Psalmist says, ' There is forgiveness with 
thee, that thou may est be feared' " 

Nature, does not know any such thing 
as forgiveness. If we run into the fire, we 
are burned ; if we fall from a window, we are 
killed; if we take poison, we die; if we 



208 The Interpreter's House. 

are capsized in the water, we are drowned. 
It often looks at sunset time, when all is 
peaceful, as if nature was very kind and lov- 
ing. And so she is at times, only there is no 
forgiveness in the natural world. Whenever 
we break a law, we must suffer for it; but 
there is forgiveness with God, and therefore, 
we ought to fear to offend the loving heart 
of our Father in heaven. 

We read in " Pilgrim's Progress," that af- 
ter Christian left the Interpreter s House, he 
went along a highway, where there was a 
wall upon both sides. "Up this way there- 
fore did the burdened Christian run ; but not 
without great difficulty, because of the load 
on his back. He ran thus till he came at 
a place somewhat ascending, and upon that 
place stood a cross, and a little below, in 
the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my 
dream, that just as Christian came up with 
the cross, his burden loosed from off his 
shoulders, and fell from off his back, and 
began to tumble, and so continued to do, 
till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre; 




I. H. 



P. 208. 



Sunshine after Storm. 209 

where it fell in. Then was Christian glad 
and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, 

'He hath given me rest.' 

Now, as he stood looking, behold three 
shining ones came to him, and saluted him, 
with, 'Peace be to thee.' So the first said 
to him, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee;' the 
second stripped him of his rags, and clothed 
him with change of raiment; the third also 
set a mark on his forehead, and gave him 
a roll, with a seal upon it, which he bade 
him look on as he ran, and that he should 
give it in at the Celestial Gate. So they 
went their way. Then Christian gave three 
leaps for joy, and went on singing ! " 

What a picture is this, my dear children, 
of the power of forgiveness. The load was 
gone, and it was all peace and joy with him 
who was once a poor sinner. 

Eemember, then, to-day, the two lessons 
of our subject — 

Char shining after rain is the law of nature. 

Clear shining after rain is the lata of the 
soul 

U 



210 The Interpreter's House. 

Let me tell you a closing fable or parable 
of this truth; it shows us how even a little 
chirping cricket has a mission in this world, 
simply in helping people to remember our 
text, "Clear shining after rain," or that sun- 
shine comes after storm, and forgiveness 
after sin. 

I remember one time being in a house 
at the sea-shore, during a terrible storm at 
night. The wind howled and blew, the rain 
came in sheets, the thunder and lightning 
were incessant, and the house shook, as if it 
would surely come down in pieces. It was 
impossible to sleep, and it was terrible to 
look out on the ocean, beating and lashing 
itself upon the rocks, as one could see it 
between the flashes of lightning. At last I 
laid down again to wait for the morning 
light; and by and by, as the rain began to 
stop, I heard the little crickets sing — oh 
how they chirped and sang one to the oth- 
er ! It seemed as if they couldn't find notes 
of gladness enough, to express their joy. 
And then I knew, when I heard the crick- 



Sunshine after Storm. 211 

ets singing, in the dry nooks and corners 
of the house, that the storm was all over, 
that the light of the morning was coming, 
and that there was clear shining after rain; 
for the crickets tell us, when we hear their 
cheery little chirp, that it is going to be dry, 
clear weather; and thus they teach us that 
it is good that a man should both hope and 
quietly wait. Hearing the crickets sing, by 
which I knew that it was going to be clear 
shining after rain, reminded me that morn- 
ing after the storm, of a fable I had once 
read, about the crickets, who waited to know 
of what use they were in the world, and I 
will close my sermon with this story. 

You see the crickets did not know what 
they were to do in the world. Their cous- 
ins, the grasshoppers, teased them, because 
they did not hop about through the tall grass 
as tliey did. The spider was busy, the flies, 
the bees, the ants, were too busy to take any 
notice of the poor crickets, who didn't seem 
to have any mission in the world Some- 



212 The Interpreter's House. 

times a set of house-crickets would meet, and 
talk the matter over. They looked at their 
long, folded-up legs, and could not but see 
how exactly they were like those of the 
grasshopper. And yet the idea of follow- 
ing the grasshopper into the cool grass, and 
jumping about all day, was odious to them. 
Once, indeed, a cricket of great self-sacrifice, 
offered to go and live with the grasshoppers, 
and try and be like them; but he sprained 
his knee-joints, and never was able to jump 
any more. 

At last they asked an old philosophical 
mole, what he thought they were fit for. 
The mole said that he had been through 
all those same doubts and difficulties, but 
he went on grubbing away down in the 
earth, until he had built a regular palace 
for himself. The mole told them that they 
would find out some day, just what they 
were fit for, that no craving was in vain, 
and that if they felt like watching and wait- 
ing for the warm rays of the sun, the time 
would come when fires would be made, and 



Sunshine after Storm. 213 

houses would be warmed, and the poor little 
crickets, who seemed to have nothing to do, 
would find their mission. 

"Why," continued the mole, " there was 
the young bull in the fields. As soon as 
he could run about at all, he began driving 
his clumsy head against every thing he 
met. No one could tell why, but he fid- 
geted and butted about all day long, and 
many of his friends and acquaintances were 
very much offended by his manners. Some 
laughed at him, and the dogs worried him; 
but, lo and behold! one day, out came the 
secret: two fine horns grew out of the lit- 
tle bull's head. People soon understood the 
meaning of all this butting; and one of the 
saucy curs, who was playing the old bark- 
ing game with him, got finely tossed for 
his pains. So, my dear little crickets, wait 
a bit; every thing fits in at the last, and 
you will find out your mission, one of these 
days." 

It was a good thing for the crickets, that 
the mole happened to give them this good 



214 The Interpreter's House. 

advice; for a mischievous monkey had told 
them, they had better all starve out their 
race, for they were of no use in the world. 

In the meantime, the crickets travelled 
about ; some stayed in the hot countries, 
some discovered a sort of cricket Elysium, 
at the mouth of volcanoes, where it was 
good and warm, and wherever fires were 
kindled by human hands, whether by wan- 
derers in the depths of forests, or sojourn- 
ers in tents, a great excitement was caused 
among those crickets, who were near enough 
to enjoy the warmth. 

But at last the mystery was solved ! The 
day of deliverance and joy came at the last^ 
The first fire that ever warmed the hearth- 
stone that flagged the grand old chimney 
arch of ancient times, ended forever the mys- 
tery of the house crickets' wants and crav- 
ings: and when it commonly blazed every 
winter night in men's dwellings, all the 
doubts and woes of cricket life were over. 
How glad the crickets were when men's 
houses came to be built! What joy the 



Sunshine after Storm. 215 

crickets felt ! How loudly they chirped, and 
how high they sprang ! 

"We knew it would be so," they said. 
"The good old mole was right, the grum- 
bling beasts were wrong. Every thing is 
perfect now, and no one is so happy as we 
are." 

And this is why the crickets come by 
troops into our houses, and live about our 
cheery fires. .Boys — never kill a cricket! 
They are said to bring good luck with them, 
and so they do, as they sing and chirp, and 
tell the story of promises made good, and of 
a mission which they have in life; for they 
come as messengers of sunshine to our homes, 
as they tell us in their cheery tones the 
story of 

"Clear Shining after Rain!' 



VIII. 



nrng $tlintts. 



WRONG DEFENCES. 

"Take away her battlements, for they are not the 
Lord's." — Jee. v. 10. 

QrfS it ever right to tell a lie? 
(S> One day I was walking on the bluffs, 
at the sea-shore, and I came suddenly upon a 
curlew, — a bird that builds its nest upon the 
banks, close to the rocks or the sand, on 
the ocean's side. I was so near the bird, that 
I almost trampled on her ; but she sprang up 
suddenly, uttered a piercing cry, and limped 
away, as if she had a broken leg or wing. 
I ran after her, to try and catch her, and 
after I had followed the fluttering bird, drag- 
ging her wing through the grass, quite a dis- 
tance, suddenly she mounted up in the air, 
gave a triumphant chirp, and wheeled off in 
the far distance towards her home again. 
That curlew acted a lie, to keep me from 



220 The Interpreter's House. 

finding her nest. She made believe she had 
a broken leg and wing, on purpose to deceive 
me and trick me. She ran limping along the 
ground, in order to make me think that I 
could easily catch her, and then, when she 
had drawn me off to a safe distance from her 
nest, she flew up in the air, and was off 
again as sound as any other bird. 

Another time I remember walking through 
the woods, in the fall of the year, when I 
found a young woodchuck in my path. I 
ran up him, to catch him, when he tumbled 
over, closed his eyes, folded up his legs, and 
seemed to be as dead as if I had shot him. 
"Poor thing," I said to myself, "I have 
frightened him so that he has died." Then, 
after poking him in the ribs a while with my 
cane, I walked away, and when I looked 
back, there was Mr. Woodchuck making off 
for a stone wall, as fast as his little fat legs 
could carry him. Then I ran after him, and 
caught him in my handkerchief, and took 
him home, and we put him in a wooden 
cage, and played menagerie with him for a 



Wrong Defences. 221 

few days, as a punishment for acting a lie, 
and making believe that he was dead, and 
then we let him go again. 

Now God has put it into the nature of 
every living being, to do all that it can to 
save its life. The woodchuck acted a lie to 
save its life — and the curlew acted a lie 
to save its nest ! But for us, who have 
higher light than the mere animal creation, 
and who are responsible to God for our ac- 
tions, not only as living creatures, but as 
moral living creatures, with a law of right 
and wrong in our souls, we must obey God 
rather than man, or our merely natural in- 
stincts, and not be as the woodchucks and 
the curlews, who deceive to save themselves. 

We must not deceive, in order to secure 
that which we may desire. We must not 
use wrong means for right ends. We must 
do good in good ways. Our text says we 
must not defend God's cause with wrong 
means: "Take away her battlements," says 
the prophet, "for they are not the Lord's." 



222 The Interpreter's House. 

I want to speak to you to-day about 
"wrong defences." 

The prophet Jeremiah is speaking in these 
words of God's judgment upon the Jews for 
their faithlessness. He says, u Go ye up 
upon her walls and destroy ; but make not a 
full end: take away her battlements; for they 
are not the Lord's." 

The defences and the excuses the Israel- 
ites were making, were not true ones. The 
battlements behind which the Jews were 
defending themselves, were not right ones; 
they did not belong to God. Therefore, the 
prophet said these false defences, or wrong 
excuses, were to be taken away, in order that 
true ones might take their place. It is just 
like having a bad foundation to a house, or 
rotten planks in a bridge, or in a ship, to 
have false excuses or bad reasons for our con- 
duct. God's words to us, when we place our- 
selves behind false defences, are these words 
of our text — " Take away her battlements, for 
they are not the Lord's." 

1 want, in this sermon, to speak about 



Wrong Defences. 223 

three false battlements, behind which we 
may screen ourselves: three wrong defences 
which people often use, and which God 
would have us take away. 



I. 



The first of these wrong defences is, the 
saying that — "TJie end justifies the means. 11 

There have been people who have said, 
that no matter what we do, if our motive 
is only right, our act itself will be right ; or, 
in other words, that we may do evil, in order 
that good may come. Now, there could not 
possibly be a worse defence than this; it is 
a battlement which belongs to the devil him- 
self, and not at all to God. 

For instance, I remember a story about a 
Turk and a crusader. It seems the Turk 
and the crusader were struggling in the 
water, to get into a boat, which had been 
upset. Finally, the Christian got in, while 
the Turk held on to the side of the boat. 
The Turk begged the Christian to save him. 



224 The Interpreter's House. 

"All right," replied the crusader; "but 
first let me baptize you." 

So the Turk consented to be baptized, 
whereupon the Christian threw him off the 
boat again, and said, 

"Now, my friend, you can drown; for you 
never can be saved if you live, and become 
a Turk again;" and the poor Turk went 
under. 

This is what is meant by doing evil that 
good may come. That crusader thought that 
the end, or the saving of that Turk's soul, 
justified the means, or the drowning of 
him. But all such defences as these are 
utterly false; they are not God's battlements. 
Think of that dreadful murder, which took 
place down on Cape Cod, a little while ago. 
A man killed his dear little daughter, on pur- 
pose to show, as he said, his faith that God 
would raise her from the dead. He thought 
.that he might do evil, and break the sixth 
commandment, in order that good might 
come. 

But the end we have in view, does not 



Wrong Defences. 225 

justify the means we use, to bring it about. 
There could be no such thing as law or gov- 
ernment, if every body thought they could 
do as they saw fit. Two wrongs can never 
make a right. 

A little newsboy once, to sell his papers, 
told a lie about what was in them. The 
matter came up in the Sunday-school class 
to which he belonged. 

" Would you tell a lie for three cents ? " 
asked the teacher, of one of the boys. 

"No, ma'am," answered Dick very decid- 
edly. 

" For a dollar, would you tell a lie?" 
asked the teacher. 

"No, ma'am," said Dick. 

"For a thousand dollars?" the teacher 
asked. 

Dick was staggered. A thousand dollars 
looked so big — it would buy such lots of 
things! While he was thinking, another 
boy roared out, 

"No, ma'am." 

"Why not?" asked the teacher. 



226 The Interpreter's House. 

"Because, when the thousand dollars was 
all gone," said the boy, " and all the things 
we have got with them are gone too, the lie 
is there all the same" 

There was a great German thinker once, 
named Hegel, who wrote a wonderful work 
on philosophy. But that little boy in the 
Sunday-school class, when he said that the 
lie would stick, when all the other things 
were gone, said in a way which we all can 
understand, what the great philosopher has 
tried to say, in a way which only a very 
few learned people could begin to take in. 

My dear children, the end does not justify 
the means; it is not right for us to do evil, 
in order that good may come. If we tell a 
lie, in order to get a thousand dollars, or ten 
thousand dollars, the lie will stick, when the 
money and the good things are all gone. 
People have thought, in days gone by, that 
it was right for them to persecute heretics, 
and force them to believe the truth, at the 
edge of the sword. Jesus told his disci- 
ples that persecution lay before them, be- 



Wrong Defences. 227 

cause they believed in him. He said to 
them, "They shall put you out of the syn- 
agogues; yea the time cometh that whoso- 
ever killeth you will think that he doeth 
God service." St. Paul himself, before his 
conversion, persecuted the Christians. He 
held the clothes of the Jews, while they 
stoned Stephen to death. He thought then, 
that it was right for him to murder a man, 
rather than let him teach what he consid- 
ered error. But this doing evil that good 
may come, is a wrong battlement, which 
does not belong to God. The Jews perse- 
cuted the Christians in the days of the apos- 
tles; and the orthodox persecuted the her- 
etics in the early Church ; and the Eomanists 
persecuted the Protestants, at the time of the 
Eeformation — as the massacre of St. Barthol- 
omew's day in Paris, and other such dreadful 
events testify; and the Church of England 
persecuted the Puritans; and the Presbyteri- 
ans and Independents persecuted the Episco- 
palians and Quakers; and the very Puritans 
themselves, who came over to New England 



228 The Interpreter's House. 

because they had been so cruelly treated in 
England, and were not allowed to worship 
God according to their own liberty of con- 
science — banished Eoger Williams and Mrs. 
Hutchinson to Ehode Island, where they 
founded the present city of Providence. 

All these persecutors — no matter what 
their creed — were hiding behind false de- 
fences, when they laid their hands upon 
their brother men for whom Jesus Christ 
died; for even though the so-called wrong 
views may have passed away, there the 
sin of persecution slicks, like the lie that 
remains, when the money it bought, has 
been spent. 

When Napoleon Bonaparte was fighting 
in Egypt, he had a great many soldiers down 
sick with the plague. He felt that he must 
move on ; he could not stay to nurse his sick 
troops; he saw that they were going to die, 
and so, it is said, he mixed poison in their 
food, and they died, and were buried, and 
Napoleon conquered. If this story is true, 
it shows us what a terrible excuse, this first 



Wrong Defences. 229 

battlement is, behind which people plant 
themselves — that we may do evil in order 
that good may come, or, in other words, that 
the end justifies the means. 

I knew a boy once who had a pet mon- 
key. His cousin was a sea-captain, and used 
to bring this boy monkeys and parrots and 
guinea-pigs from Africa and the East Indies. 
Every time his cousin's ship came in, there 
was some new animal or curiosity for Her- 
bert. One time, in mid- winter, this pet mon- 
key took a violent cold, and was seized with 
a hacking cough. He wouldn't play any 
more, or be funny with the boys. He grew 
pale and pensive. So Herbert thought he 
had better get rid of his monkey, or else he 
would soon have a little green grave, in the 
back garden, under the grape-vine. Just 
then Bamum's menagerie came into the city, 
and Herbert thought of a very bright idea. 
He resolved to sell Jocko, to the man who 
had charge of the monkey department at the 
show. So he took him around to the me- 
nagerie, in a basket lined with flannel, and 



230 The Interpreter's House. 

poor Jocko was sold for five dollars, and was 
tumbled into the cage, along with the other 
monkeys. Herbert went home with his five 
dollars, to the great admiration of the boys. 
He kept half of it, and put the other half in 
the missionary box. 

The next Saturday afternoon, all the boys 
went around to the menagerie to see Jocko ; 
but they could not find him. Either he was 
so mortified, at being put back into the com- 
pany of monkeys, after being in the company 
of human beings, that he died; or else his 
consumption hurried him off. At any rate, 
Herbert was in two dollars and a half, 
and the missionary box was in to the same 
amount, and Mr. P. T. Barnum was out five 
dollars, and the monkey's funeral expenses. 
No doubt Herbert thought, that the end he 
had in view, viz., two dollars and a half in 
the missionary box, and two dollars and a 
half in his own pocket, justified the means 
he took to get rid of a monkey, whose con- 
stitution was shattered by consumption. But 
it is not right to do evil that good may 



Wrong Defences. 231 

come — even though it is the case of enrich- 
ing a missionary box, and getting rid of a 
dying monkey, and cheating a Barnum. 

God may put it into the nature of a cur- 
lew or a woodchuck to deceive us, for the 
sake of their lives; but God does not put it 
into our hearts, to deceive and cheat our fel- 
low-men, in order to gain our own ends. He 
does just the opposite. He makes our face 
redden with shame, whenever we tell a lie. 
That is the writing of God's finger in our 
nature, speaking out for the truth. 

Doing evil that good may come is a wrong 
defence; therefore God's words are — u Take 
away these battlements, for they are not the 
Lord's." 



II. 



1 The second wrong defence, of which I shall 
speak in this sermon is — being polite, rather 
than being true. 

I remember an old story book, published 
a great many years ago, called " Thinks-I-to- 



232 The Interpreter's House. 

myself." It was about a boy's reflections to 
himself, as he began to find out the world 
he lived in. At first he thought all people 
believed, what they said ; then, after a while, 
he began to find out, that people were insin- 
cere, and did not mean what they said. One 
day some ladies came to call on his mother, 
and he tried to entertain them, until she ap- 
peared. " Oh what a lovely boy you have ! " 
they said when his mother came into the 
room. u He is so noble-looking — and so po- 
lite. Really you must be proud of him." 

Then as he was playing among the trees, 
as they passed out, he overheard them say- 
ing, " What a stupid boy that Eoger is ! 
Did you ever see such an awkward creature? 
He is as ugly as sin — and is the very image 
of his mother." Thereupon this boy would 
say, " Thinks-I-to-myself, it's a strange world 
we live in, when people can talk in this 
way." I have often thought of this boy, 
and his expression " Thinks - 1 - to - myself," 
when I have seen people hiding behind this 
false battlement; this wrong defence of be- 



Wrong Defences. 233 

ing polite rather than being true. It is right 
for us to try to please, and try to make peo- 
ple happy; only we must not try to be po- 
lite and agreeable, over a handful of lies. 
It is a wrong defence to rest in, when we 
think that pleasant manners, will ever take 
the place of strong morals. Hood, the witty 
English poet, has written a piece, about be- 
ing polite, at the expense of the truth, which 
he calls, " Truth in Parentheses, or Domestic 
Asides." These are the words — 



'I really take it very kind, 

This visit, Mrs. Skinner ! 
I have not seen yon snch an age — 
(The wretch has come to dinner!) 

'Your daughters, too, what loves of girls — 

What heads for painter's easels ! 
Come here and kiss the infant, dears, — 
(And give it p'raps the measles !) 

"Your charming boys, I see are home 
From Keverend Mr. Kussel's; 
'Twas very kind to bring them both — ■ 
(What boots for my new Brussels!) 



234 The Interpreter's House. 

"What! little Clara left at home? 
Well now I call that shabby: 
I should have loved to kiss her so, — 
(A flabby, dabby, babby !) 

"Come, take a seat — I long to hear 
About Matilda's marriage; 
You've come of course to spend the day ! — 
(Thank heaven, I hear the carriage !) 

"What! must you go? next time I hope 
You'll give me longer measure; 
Nay — I shall see you down the stairs — 
(With most uncommon pleasure !) " 

Politeness is a wrong defence, whenever 
we rest in at the expense of the truth. If 
we learn to be deceitful ourselves, and teach 
others to be deceitful, there is no knowing 
where the evil will end. It will eat into our 
honesty of character, as a soft and rotten 
place, eats into a beautiful piece of fruit. I 
have called on people, whom the servant 
at the door has told me were "out," when I 
have seen them myself, with my own eyes, 
in the drawing-room. Now, there is no 
getting round the fact, that such servants 



Wrong Defences. 235 

are taught to lie, and deceive callers, for the 
sake of not disturbing the people in the 
house. It is one thing, for a person to say- 
he is engaged, or can not see any one, if he 
is busy ; we may have to do this at cer- 
tain times, in order to get through the 
work that is expected of us ; but to teach 
a servant to lie and deceive, is all wrong, 
and those people, who tell their servants to 
say they are out, when they are in, will 
find out, on the same principle of deception 
in the kitchen, that the flour, tea, and coffee 
are u out" to the cook, or pieces of jewelry 
or silver spoons, are " out " to the chamber- 
maids and waiters. There is no true polite- 
ness in this inveterate lying; there are no 
true manners, in making other people break 
God's written commandment, which says, 
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against 
thy neighbor." 

A minister was calling, some time ago, at 
a lady's house, when the lady's little girl 
came into the room. 

"Go and speak to the minister, Clara," 



236 The Interpreter's House. 

said her mother. Clara remained silent ; she 
stood by the chair, sucking her thumb. 

"Clara," said her mother, "go and speak 
to the minister." 

"I don't want to," replied the child. 

" Clara, go and speak to the minister this 
instant ! " said her mother. " Why, I am 
ashamed of you! Why don't you want to 
go and speak to him ? " 

Clara waited a moment, and then said, 
" Because I dorit like his looks" 

The minister laughed very much at the 
child's reply. The mother, however, was 
very much disconcerted, and was about to 
send the poor child to bed, for her impolite- 
ness. 

"No, no, my dear madam," said the min- 
ister. "Teach your little girl to be truthful 
first, and to be polite afterwards ; " and he 
kissed the little child, and begged her off 
from being sent to bed. 

Kemember, my dear children, this second 
wrong defence I have spoken about — this 
battlement which does not belong to the 



Wrong Defences. 237 

Lord. Remember that morals come first, and 
manners come afterwards. 

III. 

The third and last wrong defence of which 
I shall speak in this sermon is — the habit of 
being double-faced, instead of being honest. 

A double-faced man is one who says one 
thing to a person's face, and another thing 
behind his back There is an old Dutch 
proverb, which says, "He howls with the 
wolves when he is in the wood, and bleats 
with the sheep when he is in the field." 

There was a certain priest in England, 
after the Reformation, who was known as 
the Vicar of Bray. First he was a Roman- 
ist and then a Protestant; afterwards he 
was a Romanist again, and a second time 
he became a Protestant. Some of his friends 
called him a turncoat. "Oh no," he replied, 
" I am not a turncoat. I have always stuck 
to my principle which is — to live and die 
the Vicar of Bray." 

Now, a double-faced person like this, is 



238 The Interpreter's House. 

one who hides himself in a wrong defence. 
Hypocrisy is one of the battlements which 
do not belong to God. We must not hide 
in any refuge-place of lies, and think that 
we are safe, because we have protected our- 
selves by being false to our friends. And yet, 
my dear children, how very much of peo- 
ple's talk and gossip, is made at the expense 
of those who are their friends : before whom, 
they would never dare to talk in this way. 
There was a certain cardinal once, who 
wanted to become pope. The other cardi- 
nals also wanted to be elected, but none of 
them could agree on any one candidate. At 
last, this cardinal, whose name was Mon- 
talto, counterfeited sickness, and acted as if 
he was a very infirm old man. The other 
cardinals thought he could not live long, 
so they elected him pope, and he became 
Pope Sixtus. But the moment he was elect- 
ed, he threw away his crutches, and began 
to sing the Te Deum with a much stronger 
voice than his electors had bargained for; 
and, instead of walking in their presence 



Wrong Defences. 239 

with a tottering step, he marched with a 
firm gait and perfectly upright. On some 
one commenting on this sudden change, he 
replied, "While I was looking for the keys 
of St. Peter, it was necessary to stoop; but 
having found them, the case is altered." 

Dear children, don't be double-faced : don't 
say one thing to a person's face, and another 
thing behind his back. This is one of the 
worst faults of what is called Society, to-day. 
People who hide in this wrong defence of 
double-facedness, can not be trusted. They 
become false, insincere, and untrue. You 
know the fable about the fox and the crow. 
The fox praised the crow's singing, and 
begged her to let him hear her sweet music ; 
so the foolish crow, pleased by the flattery 
of the sly fox, opened her beak to sing, and 
dropped the piece of cheese she had; while 
the fox ran off with it, and called her a fool 
for being flattered by his false praises. 

Learn not to say unkind things about peo- 
ple — things that you would not dare to say 
to their face. Don't be flatterers to please 



240 The Interpreter's House. 

people, and then say bad things about them 
when they can not hear you, and can not 
defend themselves. If you do hide behind 
this wrong defence, depend upon it, your 
friends will find you out, and will drop you. 
It was Judas who kissed his Master and then 
betrayed him. 

"Take away her battlements, for they are 
not the Lord's." Kemember this text to-day. 
God wants us to be true and honest and just 
in all our ways. Jesus himself, called Satan 
the father of lies, and we can not be the 
children of our Father in heaven, if we shield 
ourselves, behind Satan's battlements. 

Remember these three wrong defences, — 

1st. That the end justifies the means. 

2d. That manners come be/ore morals, or 
that toe must be polite before we are true; and, 

3d. That we can be double-faced, instead of 
being true to our friends. 

Children, Do not fight behind Satan s battle- 
ments. 



IX. 

atibtz. 

No. 1. 



MOTIVES. 

"Wherewithal!" — Psalm cxix. 9. 

HAT is it makes the old mill-wheel 
go? It is the water, which empties 
itself from the flume of the mill-race. What 
is it makes the windmill grind the corn? 
It is the wind beating against the flanges, 
or sails of the mill, up in the air. What is 
it makes the engine go? It is the force of 
steam. What is it makes the horse go? It 
is either oats or the whip. What is it makes 
us go? It is our motives. What are our 
motives? Our motives are the secret causes, 
which influence the will. 

At the Centennial Exhibition in Philadel- 
phia, all the hundreds of wheels, and cogs, 
and machines, in Machinery Hall, were set 
in motion by the great Corliss' engine, which 



244 The Interpreter's House. 

swung out its big shaft, as playfully as an 
elephant swings out his trunk, at a menag- 
erie, for apples and nuts, when the boys stand 
around and tease him. And yet, think of all 
the wheels and cogs, which that engine had 
to drive ! Now, the power which started all 
those many machines, was the power of steam 
in the famous Corliss' engine. This power is 
called motive power. It is the power, which 
makes a thing go. The weights on a clock, 
are the motive power of the clock ; they pull 
at the wheels, when the wheels are wound 
up, and make the clock go. The water in 
the tank, at the top of the public building, 
presses down upon the wheel of the ele- 
vator, and carries a load of people up to the 
top of the house. That water is the motive 
power of the elevator. 

Some time ago, I was with a party going 
through the famous Cheney silk factory, in 
South Manchester, Connecticut. There we 
saw the wonderful Jacquard loom, invented 
by a French weaver in Lyons, for weaving 



Motives. 245 

figured silk goods. It is the most wonder- 
ful piece of machinery you can imagine, as it 
goes on making beautiful figured patterns in 
silk; and yet the motive power, which causes 
that loom to do its delicate work, is the same 
power of steam, which turns all the great 
wheels and rough shafts in the factory. 

When I was out West in Iowa, and rode 
a missionary circuit there, w T ith an old horse 
named Sam, who would not go, unless I 
stopped every little while to give him oats, 
I remember hearing of another like-minded 
horse, who would not go unless his owner 
built a fire under him. The fire made that 
horse trot; that was the last motive which 
reached his will and made him go. 

Now, then, when we come to ourselves, 
what is the mainspring or the motive power 
of our lives? 

This word of our text, "Wherewithal," has 
come to have the meaning of money, as the 
great motive power; so that people say they 
would do this or that, if they only had the 



246 The Interpreter's House. 

"wherewithal" Money will do a great many- 
things in the world, but it never can be the 
motive power, or the wherewithal, of every- 
thing, as the Corliss' engine was the where- 
withal at the Centennial Exposition. Money 
can build railroads, and furnish fine houses; 
it can buy pictures and build steamboats ; it 
can buy votes on election day, and can take 
people to Europe, and can buy for them all- 
sorts of precious things there; but it is not 
the " where withal" of life. It will not do 
every thing for us. It will not bring back 
the dead to life; it will not give peace and 
comfort, to those who are in trouble from 
affliction, or from sin ; it will not give a sick 
man health, or a sinning man salvation; it 
will not give a coarse and brutal nature, a 
love for that which is beautiful; it can not 
make a hateful person, loving and compas- 
sionate ; it can not buy for a person taste, or 
refinement, or education. Money is power, 
and knowledge is power; but neither of 
these is the "wherewithal" which make us 
go in life. 



Motives. 247 

I am going to speak to you to-day, about 
our motives, or the things in this life, which 
govern our wills, and make us act. There 
are certain things in life which turn our 
wills, just as the water in the mill-race, turns 
the old mossy-green mill-wheel. These are 
our motives. They are the things which 
"make us go." But before I begin to speak 
in the next sermon, about some of our com- 
mon motives, we must find out, in this first 
sermon, the answer to these two questions, — 

1st. What makes our motives? 

2d. How do our motives make us? 



What makes our motives? 

Let us see how our motives are made. 
How is the governor of a state, or the presi- 
dent of the United States, made? He is 
elected, you say. Yes; he is elected by a 
majority of votes, over the other candidates. 
First, the different candidates are nominated, 
and then they are talked about, and speeches 



248 The Interpreter's House. 

are made about them; and then, on election 
day, the people vote, and the candidate who 
receives the most votes, you know, is elected. 
And, my dear children, in the same way our 
wills are made or elected, by the majority of 
our thoughts and actions. Our different mo- 
tives, are like different ballots all going into 
the same ballot-box; and the will or deter- 
mination, which has the greatest number of 
votes, as it were, is elected, as the ruling 
motive. All sorts of things go to make up 
our motives, as all sorts of food go to make 
up our blood. It is a very difficult thing, to 
have pure and simple motives. Jesus said 
that the Pharisees prayed, and fasted, and 
gave alms, to be seen of men. The motive 
of their religion was pride. But the poor 
widow woman, who cast into the money-box 
all that she had, did her charity, not to be 
seen of men, but to be known only of God. 
Her motive was pure and true and good, and 
it made her character, true, and pure, and 
good. 

There was a certain king who wanted to 



Motives. 249 

build a cathedral; and, that the credit of it 
might be all his own, he forbade any from 
contributing to its erection, in the least de- 
gree. A tablet was placed in the side of the 
building, and on it his name was carved, as 
the builder. But that night he saw in a 
dream, an angel, who came down and erased 
his name, and the name of a poor widow ap- 
peared in its stead. This was three times re- 
peated, when the enraged king summoned 
the woman before him, and demanded, 

"What have you been doing? and why 
have you broken my commandment ? " 

The trembling woman replied, " I love the 
Lord, and longed to do something for his 
name, and for the building up of his church. 
I was forbidden to touch it in any way ; so, 
in my poverty, I brought a wisp of hay for 
the horses that drew the stones." 

And the king saw that he had labored for 
his own glory, but the widow for the glory 
of God. 

Now the motive which was elected ruler in 
that king s mind, was a bad motive, and the 



250 The Interpreter's House. 

motive which ruled, or was elected by that 
poor woman's nature, was a pure and true 
one. The feelings and desires in the mind 
of the king, were like bad voters; the feel- 
ings and desires in the mind of the poor 
woman, were like good voters. 

Just see how many things go to make up 
our motives, or our springs of action. A 
horse runs in a race, because of the feeling 
of pride in winning. A dog hunts for game 
in the woods, from an instinct in his nature, 
to catch birds and rabbits. The blue-fish 
snatches at the metal squid, because he 
thinks it is a little fish, and he is death on 
little fishes. The birds go South in the win- 
ter, because they know it will be cold at the 
North. 

And then we come to man ! What gives a 
man his motives? There are a great many, 
things in our nature, which go to make up 
our motives. First there are our natural 
wants, — hunger, thirst, need of clothing, and 
need of shelter. Then there are our artificial 
wants. We want our tea, and our coffee, 



Motives. 251 

and our books, and our lights, and all our 
pretty things. Then there are our affections, 
our love, our need of friends and family, our 
gratitude, our hatred, our anger, our malice, 
our revenge — and all these qualities. Then 
there is our hope, and our fear, our imag- 
ination, our instincts, our different desires, — 
such as our desire of knowledge ; our desire 
of being loved and esteemed; the desire of 
our own approval; the desire of having 
things, of owning things, and getting more 
things. The littlest child, shows us a great 
many of these desires. I know children who 
take their broken dollies, and horses without 
any legs to them, to bed every night, for fear 
they may be stolen at night in some way. 
So, then, all these desires and instincts and 
wants, these appetites and affections, and 
many more, which I have not named, are like 
different voters, living in our minds, which go 
to elect a motive every time we act. It is so 
wonderful, that we do not take it in at all; 
and this is because the mind thinks so quick- 
ly. It is just like the printing-press, turning 



252 The Interpreter's House. 

over the leaves so quickly; it is like the 
shuttle, flying through the loom back and 
forth, so that you can hardly see it ; it is like 
the valves in the steam chest of the loco- 
motive, opening and shutting, and sending 
the piston backward and forward, with such 
rapidity, that we can not at all take it in. 
Yet every time we act, there is some motive, 
good or bad, right or wrong, which influ- 
ences us, and turns the wheel of the will. 
For, to come back again to the illustration of 
the mill, our motives, or springs of action, 
turn the wheel of the will, just as the water 
in the mill-race, turns the mill-wheel. Our 
thought or judgment, is like the brake, which 
opens or shuts the water, and makes the 
wheel go or stop; and our reason, is like 
the man who opens or shuts the sluice-way 
brake, and starts or stops, all the machinery. 
Our reason is ourselves, and when we give 
way to our passions, it is like the saw-mill, 
spluttering and screeching, over some hard 
knot in the planks. 

It is, then, all these different things in 



Motives. 253 

our nature, which make up our motives. 
These different impulses are like the water 
in the mill pond, coming from many little 
springs and brooks, yet every drop, unit- 
ing with the other drops, to run through 
the flume, and turn the heavy wheel of the 
mill. These desires and instincts and feel- 
ings, bad and good, holy and sinful, are 
like the bad and good voters on an election 
day, going up to the polls, to elect their 
candidate. All these desires and impulses 
of our nature, — these springs of human ac- 
tion, as they are called, — go to make up our 
motives. 



II. 



Now, secondly, How do our motives make 
its? I answer, — they make us, or determine 
our characters, by certain qualities which 
we call goodness and evil. We do not stop 
to think about these things, but they are 
nevertheless true. We are made good or 
bad by our motives, and not only by our 



254 The Interpreter's House. 

deeds; for the Bible tells us, that while 
"man looketh on the outward appearance, 
the Lord looketh at the heart." 

Here are two farmers ploughing up their 
land in the fall-time, to get it ready for an 
early spring. One says to himself, "Now, 
I will put plenty of bone-dust, or ground 
fish, or manure upon my soil. I will enrich 
it, and make it good for my next spring s 
sowing." The other man says, "It makes 
very little difference about this soil. I will 
empty my ash barrels all through these fur- 
rows, and in this way I will get rid of my 
ash heaps." It is not hard to tell which of 
those farmers would have a good crop, and 
which would have a bad one. Any one 
could prophesy about their future success, 
simply by looking at their fields. In the 
one, the bone-dust would enrich the soil; in 
the other, the ashes would ruin the ground. 
In each case, something that was not there 
before, made the soil good or bad, by being 
placed there. 

Or here is a professor, making some ex- 



Motives. 255 

periments in chemistry, before a class. He 
has before him several glass jars of colorless 
water. He holds in his hand a glass tube, 
which has some plain-looking water in it, 
just as colorless as that in the jars before 
him. Now he holds his tube over the water 
jars. He lets a drop or two fall in the 
first jar, and a beautiful rich blue cloud 
is formed. He lets fall a few drops in the 
second jar, and some wonderful yellow crys- 
tals are seen. He drops again a little of 
the liquid in the third jar, and some crimson 
spars, or flakes, like those of snow, appear. 
It seems, at first sight, as if he was playing 
that he was a magician or juggler. But that 
professor is not tricking the boys ; he is only 
explaining some of the wonderful things we 
find in chemistry. In each one of those 
glass jars, which seemed to contain only 
plain water, there was some chemical ele- 
ment — something very powerful, though un- 
seen — which, when the other drops touched 
it, made the blue, the yellow, and the red 
crystals appear. 



256 The Interpreter's House. 

Very well, my dear children, just in the 
way in which the bone-dust and the ashes 
make good and bad soil; just in the way in 
which the different glass jars made blue, yel- 
low, and red crystals, or precipitates, as they 
are called, — do our motives make us good 
or bad. Our motives enrich or debase our 
characters; our motives make us pure, no- 
ble, and true, or mean, selfish, and hateful; 
just as the drops from the test tube make 
the water in the glass jars blue, yellow, and 
red. 

We have seen before, that a great many 
things go to form our motives. I said it was 
like an election, where there were a great 
many voters ; vbut when our motives are set- 
tled and formed in our nature, then these 
motives make us what we are. 

If we want to be sure of this, let us go 
into a court, where two men are being tried 
for killing their fellow-men. There sits the 
judge, behind the desk, with his fellow 
judges by his side; in front of him is the 
clerk; below the clerk are the lawyers, who 



Motives. 257 

manage the case ; on one side are the twelve 
jurymen, and there in the dock are the two 
murderers. John Jones is to be tried for 
killing a man. He was out on the swamp, 
hiding behind a blind, shooting snipe, when 
a deaf man, not hearing his gun, walked 
through the tall grass, and was accidentally 
shot. The motive of the man who fired the 
gun was to shoot snipe, not to shoot the deaf 
man. He might have been careless, but he 
is not a criminal; he had no motive of hate or 
revenge in his heart, when he shot the deaf 
man instead of the snipe. So he pays a fine, 
and is set free. But it is very different with 
the other prisoner, Jonas Trott. He has 
hated a man who owed him money, for a 
long time. At last he went one night to 
his house, armed with a seven-barrelled re- 
volver. He summoned the man out, who 
owed him the money, called him a rascal, 
and swore at him ; demanded his money, and 
when he had no money to give, dragged him 
to the barn, and shot him there. He had a 
very bad motive for killing the man. It was 
17 



258 The Interpreter's House. 

very wrong for him to go to his debtor's 
house, armed with a loaded revolver. It was 
not only his shooting the man, which made 
him a murderer, it was the motive he had in 
killing him, which brings him in from the 
jury the verdict of premeditated murder, and 
sentences him to be hung. So, you see, it is 
our motives after all which make our char- 
acters. They are the "wherewithal" by which 
we are made and judged. 

An old Methodist minister was preaching 
before a conference of his fellow ministers. 
He described the last great day of account, 
the Judgment Day, when every one would 
be judged, not only by his deeds, but by his 
motives. He represented the Judge asking, 
" What did you preach for ? " 

"I preached, Lord," said one, "that I 
might keep a good living that was left met 
by my father; which, if I had not entered 
the ministry, would have been wholly lost to 
me and my family." 

Christ addresses him, " Stand by; thou hast 
thv reward." 



Motives. 259 

The question is put to another, " And what 
did you preach for ? " 

" Lord, I was applauded as a learned man ; 
and I preached to keep up the reputation 
of an excellent orator, and an ingenious 
preacher." 

The answer of Christ to him also is, " Stand 
by; thou hast thy reward." 

The Judge puts the question to a third, 
"And what did you preach for?" 

" Lord," saith he, " I neither aimed at the 
great things of this world, though I was 
thankful for the conveniences of life which 
thou gavest me; nor did I preach that I 
might gain the character of a wit, or of a 
man of parts, or of a fine scholar; but I 
preached in compassion to souls, and to 
please and honor thee; my design, Lord, in 
preaching, was that I might win souls to 
thy blessed Majesty." 

The Judge called out, " Eoom, men ! room, 
angels! let this man come and sit with me 
on my throne; he has owned and honored 
me on earth, and I will own and honor him, 



260 The Interpreter's House. 

through all the ages of eternity." It was the 
pure motive, which made the man a saint. 
Many years ago, in Switzerland, there was 
a poor goatherd, who lived over on the Wen- 
gern Alp. His name was Andreas, and his 
boy's name was Fritz. During one very 
long and severe winter, when for nearly a 
month their little chalet was buried under 
the snow, the wife of Andreas died. All 
they had to live on, during this terrible win- 
ter, was the milk from the goats, and their 
one cow, and the black beans they had stored 
away. The poor father and son, dug the 
grave for the dead wife and mother, under 
the turf of the chalet; for the ground out- 
side was frozen too hard, and the mountain- 
side was blocked by avalanches, and it was 
impossible for them to get down to the lit- 
tle towns of Grindel-wald or Meyringen. At 
last, when the spring came, Andreas was 
compelled to borrow some money from one 
of his neighbors to pay for the rent of 
his Swiss cottage. 

Grimli, the neighbor, was a very avaricious 



Motives. 261 

man, and it troubled him greatly, that An- 
dreas could not pay the forty francs which 
he had borrowed. 

One day, when little Fritz came home with 
a pile of faggots upon his shoulder, he asked 
his father what Neighbor Grimli meant by 
driving their cow into his pen. 

"Alas, my child," exclaimed the distressed 
cottager, "he has seized Gretchen for my 
debt, and we can never have the dear old 
cow again ; for where can I get forty francs 
to pay Grimli, that which I owe him?" 

Here poor Andreas, overcome by his losses, 
and his sense of poverty, sat down by his 
dead wife's empty chair, and gave way to 
a torrent of tears. 

"Do not cry, dear father," said Fritz. "I 
am a big boy now, and I can help you. I 
will get you the forty francs, see if I do 
not." 

"Ah, my son," replied his father, "you are 
my only comfort left, and you mean well, I 
know; but how could you ever get forty 
francs ? " 



262 The Interpreter's House. 

"You will see," said Fritz. 

The next morning, bright and early, Fritz 
seized his alpenstock, and the rope such as 
the guides used with travellers, and started 
forth for Meyringen. He went at once to 
the English hotel, and inquired if a Mr. Mc- 
Donald, a Scotchman, was there. He had 
been with him before, as a guide to the Faul- 
horn. 

"Send the lad up," was the Scotchman's 
reply; so Fritz ascended the stairs to the 
Scotchman's apartment. 

"Well, my lad," said Mr. McDonald, "what 
luck have you now ? What do you want with 
me?" 

"I have come to tell you," replied Fritz, 
"that I know a place where I can get you 
a vulture's brood : you wanted one the other 
day, you remember." 

" Good for you, lad ! brave boy ! And how 
much do you want for your job?" 

"Forty francs," replied Fritz. 

"Nonsense, child! Get out with you! I 
hate such avariciousness on the part of one 



Motives. 263 

so young. You are a grasping cur, to be 
sure ! " 

Hereupon Fritz told the Scotchman the 
danger of the expedition, and how rarely 
any one ventured to go so far off the reg- 
ular track, for the sake of finding a vulture's 
brood ; but that as he had heard Mr. McDon- 
ald express his desire for one, and knew a 
certain place, over a great chasm, where he 
had seen the vultures flying, he was ready 
and willing to take his life in his hand, for 
forty francs, that he might help his poor fa- 
ther buy back the lost cow. 

When Mr. McDonald found out the motive 
of the boy, — that it was devotion to his fa- 
ther, and not selfishness for greed, — he flung 
Fritz, two gold sovereigns, which were a lit- 
tle more than forty francs, and told him to 
let the vultures alone, and take the money 
back to his father. 

Happy Fritz ! How he waited for his fa- 
ther to come home that night, and wondered 
what detained him so long. Andreas could 
not take it in. Forty francs — and the cow 



264 The Interpreter's House. 

redeemed ! How could it be ? The answer 
was simple enough,— the "wherewithal" for 
the cow came from the " ivherewithal" of that 
true, pure boy's nature. The will made the 
way: the motive brought the reward. 

Eemember, then, my dear children, these 
two lessons of our sermon to-day, — 

1st. It is our ruling habits which make up 
our motives; and 

2d. It is our motives which give character and 
meaning to our actions, and make them good or 
bad. 

The great "wherewithal" in life, the thing 
which makes us go, is our motives. Let us 
learn, then, to be very careful as to which 
motives we let rule us: for "as a man think- 
eth, so is he." 



X. 

3B 1 i ft t s . 



C3»' 



No. 2. 



# 



MOTIVES. 

" Wherewithal." — Psalm cxix. 9. 

|UR subject to-day is our motives. In 
the last sermon we tried to find out 
the answer to these two questions, — Wliat 
make our motives? and, How do our motives 
make us? 

The motives we have, rule our will, just 
as the weights move the clock, or the steam 
drives the engine, or the water in the mill- 
race, turns the wheel of the mill. Sometimes 
our motives are very weak, and have great 
difficulty in making us go. What boy does 
not know how hard it is to go back to school, 
in the warm days of September, after coming 
home from the mountains, or the sea-shore ! 
Every thing is warm and languid ; the grass- 



268 The Interpreter's House. 

hoppers buzz in the grass, and the crickets 
chirp away, and all the noises and sounds 
of the field or the road, are heard so plainly 
in the school-room, that the mind stays any- 
where, but on the book or the desk. Some- 
times our motives are very strong, and run 
away with us, like a horse with his rider, or 
a freshet in the spring-time, breaking down 
bridges and mill dams. 

There were some boys once, playing at an 
old saw-mill, who thought it would be great 
fun to make the old thing "go" at full speed. 
So, when the men had gone off to dinner, 
these boys opened the flood gates, and let a 
full head of water on. The old wheel flew 
round ; the saws whizzed up and down ; the 
speed of the machinery increased the fric- 
tion, and was on the point of setting the 
mill on fire, when the workmen returned. 
The boys, not being able to stop the water 
when once it had been let on, had disap- 
peared. There was too much motive power 
for that mill ; it almost burnt it up. 

I remember having a cuckoo clock, which 



Motives. 269 

kept good time, but got the hours wrong. 
My cuckoo bird would come out of his box, 
and at twelve o'clock would lazily drone out, 

cuck — o — o ! cuck o — o ! cu — ck o — o ! 

three times, and there he would stop. It 
used to make me feel tired just to hear him 
try to sing. I used to feel like saying, "Oh, 
never mind! If you are not able to say 
cuckoo twelve times, don't try to do it." At 
last I took a small flat-iron, and tied it on 
the chain which ran the striking machinery. 
The next day, at twelve o'clock, he had got 
through his twelve "cuckoos," in the time 
which it had taken him before, to strike 
three o'clock. He had more " whereivithal" 
than before; the flat-iron added to his mo- 
tive power, and he was now as fierce as a 
fighting-cock. 

I want to speak to-day about four great 
motives which make people go. They are like 
the water in the mill-race; or like the flat- 
iron on the striking weight of the cuckoo 
clock. These motives are, — 



270 The Interpreter's House. 

Pleasure, 

Profit, 

Power, 

Purity. 



First of all comes the motive of Pleasure. 
This is one of the strongest motives in the 
world. People like above every thing else, 
to have a good time, just as boys will go 
anywhere or do any thing for the sake of 
" fun." 

Now pleasure is all right for us, if we 
know how to use it — if we can drive it, in- 
stead of having it run away with us. Why 
do we smile when we meet people that we 
like ? Why do we laugh ? Why do we like 
to hear funny stories and witty things? It 
is because God has so formed us, that we 
must have amusements and pleasures, as well 
as duties and work; for the saying is true, 
that "all work, and no play, makes Jack a 
dull boy." It is only when we let pleasure 



Motives. 271 

become the ruling motive of our life that it 
becomes dangerous and unnatural — as dan- 
gerous as the saw-mill with the full head of 
water let on, and as unnatural as the quick 
answering cuckoo clock, with the flat-iron 
tied to its striking weight. And yet this 
motive of pleasure has ruled empires and 
nations and kingdoms. 

In the days of Imperial Rome, gladiators 
fought each other in the arena, slaves toiled 
in the fields, and servants risked their lives 
in the chase, or in conflict with wild beasts, 
simply to find out some new pleasure or en- 
joyment, for the emperor and the lords and 
senators. 

The Persian ruler, Xerxes, the same who 
invaded Greece, once said to one of his sa- 
traps, or counsellors, u Who can invent for 
me a new pleasure?" 

And when the terrible French Revolution 
broke out in France, while the poor infuriated 
peasants were dying of starvation, and were 
made paupers by the taxation of the land, the 
court and the nobles were feasting at the pal- 



272 The Interpreter's House. 

ace at Versailles, and the ladies were playing, 
with Queen Marie Antoinette in the gardens 
of the Petite Trianon, that they were shep- 
herdesses, dressed up with flowers and rib- 
bons, like the pictures of little Bo-Peep. 

Pleasure is the great motive of all those 
who do not believe in God, or in the here- 
after. St. Paul was right, when he said, in 
his Epistle to the Corinthians, " If after the 
manner of men I have fought with beasts at 
Ephesus, what* advantageth it me, if the dead 
rise not ? let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow 
we die." St. Paul was here using the argu- 
ment of the Epicureans, as they were called, 
a set of people who believed that death was 
the ending of every thing, and that the only 
thing to do in this world was to get all the 
pleasure there was in it, and have a good 
time. The great motive of these Epicure- 
ans was pleasure. " Let us eat and drink," 
they said, " for to-morrow we die." And St. 
Paul's argument, to reach this very class, 
was, that they were right if, this world was 
all. Where would be the use of all his self- 



Motives. 273 

denial, and his labors, if they were all lost 
when he died? Why should he contend 
with evil agencies, as men fought with the 
beasts in the Coliseum, if death ended every 
thing ? It is pleasure, then, or the desire to 
eat and drink and have a good time, which 
is one of the strongest motives in the world. 
Our nature gives way to this motive, just as 
the turf gives way to a ploughshare, or the 
snow on the track to the revolving broom. 
We like so very much to have plenty of en- 
joyment, that after a while the love of pleas- 
ure becomes in our hearts the ruling motive 
there. 

In the town of Hamelin, in Germany, 
according to an old fable, which the poet 
Browning has made into a poem, the peo- 
ple were greatly troubled with rats. This 
was in the year 1284. The people were 
worried by night and by day. The cook 
in the kitchen, the baby in the cradle, and 
the worshippers at church, were all disturbed 
by them. At last a piper, dressed in a suit 
of many colors, came to the town, and pro- 
18 



274 The Interpreter's House. 

posed to rid it of the vermin, for a certain 
sum of money. The people gladly accepted 
his terms. Thereupon the piper began to 
play, and the rats began to come forth from 
their holes and dens, and to follow the piper. 
He led them to the river Weser, into which 
they all plunged and were drowned; the pi- 
per then returned to the town, and asked for 
his pay; but the townsfolk, being no longer 
in fear of the rats, refused payment and justi- 
fied their refusal, by accusing the rat-charm- 
er of sorcery. In order to have his revenge, 
the Pied Piper, as he was called, reappeared, 
on a beautiful June day, in the streets of 
Hamelin Town. He put the magic pipe to 
his lips, and in a short time all the little 
boys and girls in the town came skipping 
out to meet him. He led them forth, a mer- 
ry procession of laughing and dancing chil- 
dren, to the Koppelberg, a mountain outside 
the town. There was a cavern in one side, 
and the strange procession passed in, and was 
seen no more. Two only, one blind and the 
other dumb, were left: one to point out the 



Motives. 275 

place where the children disappeared, and 
the other to tell the sad story. Thus per- 
ished one hundred and twenty children, as 
they followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin 
Town. 

This is only a fable ; but in the same way, 
my dear children, men and women run af- 
ter pleasure, until they are lured to their 
own destruction, as the children followed 
the magical piper. Some men follow drink, 
until they become brutes, and their bodies 
break down, and can stand it no longer. 
Some take to gambling, for the sake of 
the excitement, and the money they make. 
And women follow the charmed piper of 
pleasure, too, and are led on to the cavern, 
where they are never heard from again. 
Vanity, flattery, living beyond their means, 
love of admiration, love of finery, love of 
excitement, — these are some of the pleasures 
which become the ruling motives of many a 
once pure and innocent girl's life. 

The great poet Goethe has written a won- 
derful drama, called "Faust," which has been 



276 The Interpreter's House. 

put to music, by the distinguished composer 
Gounod. Faust was an old white-haired phi- 
losopher, who was tired of knowledge and 
learning, and wanted to have the pleasures 
of his youth again. So Mephistopheles, or 
the devil, appears, and makes a bargain 
with Faust, that if he will sell his soul to 
him, so that he may possess him in the other 
world, Mephistopheles will let him have all 
the pleasure he wants, in this world. So the 
bargain is sealed, and Faust is changed into 
a young student ; and, after running through 
all the sins of his lifetime, is seized by the 
devil, and is carried off to hell, the victim of 
his spent pleasures. These were the words 
of the devil when he signed the compact 
with Faust, 

•Til to thy service here agree to bind me, 
To run and never rest at caU of thee: 
When over yonder thou shalt find me, 
Then thou shalt do as much for me." 

And Faust replied, 

"I care not much what's over yonder, 
When thou hast knocked this world asunder. 



Motives. 277 

Come if it will the other may, 

Let me but end this fit of dreaming, 

Then come what will Tve naught to say." 

Now, nothing could better explain to us, 
this passion of pleasure in the heart, this 
strong motive of pleasing our own selves, 
than this story of Faust and Mephistopheles. 
He sold his soul to the devil, for all eter- 
nity, for the sake of a little pleasure in this 
world. And there are hundreds of people 
to-day, who are doing this very same thing. 
They are like Esau, who, because he was 
hungry, for one morsel of food sold his birth- 
right. Lord Chesterfield, who was one of the 
gayest and most pleasure-seeking of the Eng- 
lish nobility, said before he died, " I have run 
the rounds of pleasure, and have done with 
them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of 
the world ; I have seen all the coarse pulleys 
and dirty ropes which move their gaudy ma- 
chines; and I have also seen and smelled the 
tallow candles, which illuminate the whole 
decoration, to the astonishment and admira- 
tion of the ignorant audience. When I re- 



278 The Interpreter's House. 

fleet on all that I have seen, I look upon all 
that is past as one of those romantic dreams 
which come from opium, and I do not de- 
sire to repeat the nauseous dose." 

People who give way to pleasure, step by- 
step, until it masters them at every point, 
are just like intoxicated persons, who do not 
know that they are drunk. They are like 
those poor moths and beetles which fly into 
the house from the garden, on summer nights, 
when the lamps are lighted, and throw them- 
selves upon the hot chimney until they are 
burned; they are like the sea birds in a 
storm, which see the glare of the light- 
house lamp, and dash themselves against 
the strong, hard panes, and die. 



II. 



Profit is another strong motive. 

People say, continually, "What is the 
use?" This is their ruling motive, or im- 
pulse. They want to know if a thing will 



Motives. 279 

pay. Does it pay, they ask, to support a 
church? Does it pay to send out mission- 
aries to the heathen? Does it pay to be 
good? This was just what the devil said 
of Job — "Doth Job serve God for naught?" 
He hinted that Job was a worshipper of God, 
because he found on the whole, that it paid 
to be good. But God swept all Job's posses- 
sions away; he deluged the poor man with 
trouble and affliction of every kind; and then, 
when he had nothing left him, Job still said 
of God, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
in him," and God justified Job at the last, 
and vindicated him, before his friends and 
the world. 

When Demosthenes, the great Grecian Or- 
ator, was denouncing the tyranny of Philip, 
king of Macedon, Philip asked him if he was 
not afraid of losing his head by such kind 
of talk. 

" Not in the least," replied the patriot ; 
"for if I do lose it, the Athenians will be- 
stow an immortal one upon me." 

This was very much like St. Paul's words, 



280 The Interpreter's House. 

" I am now ready to be offered, and the time 
of my departure is at hand. . . . Hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness." These men did not have to 
ask themselves the question, what is the use 
of being brave? But Judas Iscariot said, 
"What is the use of following Jesus?" Ben- 
edict Arnold asked himself, " Does it pay to 
be a patriot when others are promoted, and I 
serve on alone, unnoticed?" So money, or 
the motive of profit and gain, influenced 
their wills, and turned them to sin. 

There was a certain missionary out West, 
who was trying to build a church. He tried 
to induce the different farmers and store- 
keepers, to subscribe towards this new enter- 
prise. Among those who put down their 
names on the subscription list, was a miserly 
old farmer, from whom the young missionary 
never expected a cent. A day or two after- 
wards, the minister met the farmer. 

"Good morning, my friend," he remarked, 
as the farmer's wagon stopped on the road- 
side. "I am very glad to find your name 



Motives. 281 

down for a hundred dollars for our church. 
I hardly expected such a generous gift from 

you!" 

"Wal," said the old farmer, "I was kinder 
surprised me own self, to be sure; but I said 
to myself, a real pooty church on that there 
field, will double the value of my corner lots" 

It was his own profit, which was the rul- 
ing motive of that avaricious farmer's sub- 
scription. It was not love for the church, 
or any desire to do good to others. And, 
my dear children, we need continually to 
look at our own motives, and find out which 
are pure and true ones, and which are bad, 
unworthy ones. We need to have our souls 
regulated from time to time, just as we take 
our clocks and watches to the watchmaker's, 
to have them set right, according to the 
standard time. We go too fast or we go too 
slow. We may think we are doing God's 
service, when all the while we are only pleas- 
ing ourselves, or doing something which 
will get us good in return. 

It is very true that honesty is the best 



282 The Interpreter's House. 

policy, but then we ought to be honest, from 
a higher motive than that of being rewarded 
for it. We may work and read and study 
and play for our own profit; but when we 
come to serve God, or do good to our fellow- 
men, we must not be influenced by the value 
this conduct will bring, to our "corner lots" 

III. 

A third motive is Power. Men and women 
love power ! One man loves to feel that he 
can sign a handsome check, and get that, 
which other men are powerless to obtain. 
Another man takes pride in saying to those 
about him, " Do this," and it is done. Politi- 
cians love power. A successful candidate at 
an election, takes great joy in the thought of 
his multitude of votes, and the sound of the 
band of music coming up the street to sere- 
nade him, and the shoutings and hurrahs of 
the people, make him feel very happy in the 
sense of power, which the people have com- 
mitted to him. The one great motive of 



Motives. 283 

Napoleon's life was power. He put away 
his loving wife, Josephine, he sacrificed his 
friends, he soaked Europe with blood, de- 
stroyed the youth of France, and kept the 
nations busy in trying to put him down, all 
for the sake of his own personal power. It 
was not pleasure or profit which influenced 
him, it was only an inordinate love of power. 
When Napoleon gained the famous battle of 
Austerlitz, which placed the Austrian em- 
peror at his feet, it was the climax of his 
military greatness. It is said that the news 
of this battle caused the death of the great 
English statesman, William Pitt; for then it 
was that he first felt the loss of his own 
power, as it became transferred to the rising 
emperor of the French. 

This sense of power is a very strong and 
blunting feeling. When one has obtained 
power, he cares very little for the weak. 
Take, for example, a bull in a pasture. How 
apt we are to tease the sheep, and worry the 
calves, and throw stones at them, to make 
them run ; but when we come near the bull, 



284 The Interpreter's House. 

with his short neck and horns, and see the 
fire in his eye, and hear him bellow, and 
watch him paw the ground — we don't throw 
sticks at him, we let him alone. He has so 
much power, that we learn to respect him. 
And there are certain men whom we are apt 
to respect, simply because they are so power- 
ful. Some men are powerful in their wills 
and characters; other men are powerful by 
their influence. A word from them will be 
worth hundreds of dollars ; they seem to have 
what they want, just as Aladdin had what 
he wanted when he rubbed his magical lamp. 
One man is powerful because he has office; 
another is powerful because he has position. 
One man is cashier of a bank ; another man 
is president of a railroad company ; a third is 
in congress. They each have power in their 
own way. And men who are after favors 
want to know them, to get at their power. 
Power is like the clock's weight, running over 
the wheels within — it makes the clock go. 
Look what power Moses had, when he came 
down from the mountain and met Aaron face 



Motives. 285 

to face, and rebuked him for his idolatry and 
sin, before all the people. Think of Elijah's 
power, when he confronted Ahab and the 
priests of Baal, and stood alone before that 
vast multitude, as a living witness to the 
truth of God! 

Some time ago, there was a great run on 
one of the saving's banks, in Newark, New 
Jersey. Poor people, with their books in 
their hands, formed a line, which extend- 
ed for blocks. They were all besieging the 
place, to get their money out before the bank 
broke. Some of the poor Irishwomen were 
crying, and the men were cursing and swear- 
ing at the bank officers. There was a great 
deal of excitement in the bank. They sent 
for the police, to quiet the people, for it 
looked as if there would be a row in the 
street. But the policemen were powerless; 
they could do nothing towards quieting the 
mob. At last, the bank directors thought 
of a certain priest, and they sent for him. 
Presently he came. He found out that there 
was a panic, and that if the people took 



286 The Interpreter's House. 

their money out all would be ruined. So 
he walked up and down the long line, 
telling the people that their money was 
perfectly safe, and that the best thing for 
them to do, was to go home with their 
books, and leave their money alone. Pres- 
ently one or two women, who believed in 
their good and faithful priest, stepped out 
of the line and walked off; then others fol- 
lowed their example ; the men stopped swear- 
ing, and began to laugh, and smoke their 
pipes; and by six o'clock at night, there 
was not one person left at the door of the 
bank. Now what a wonderful thing such 
power as this is. The people had faith in 
their priest, and he had power over them. 
This desire for power over men, is one of 
the strongest motives in the world. It lays 
hold of those who are ambitious and eager, 
and it turns them, just as the walking-beam 
of a steamboat, turns the paddle-wheels ; just 
as the wheel in the wheelhouse turns the 
course of the ship; just as the wind on 
the slanting sails, turns the millstones in 



Motives. 287 

the wind-mill, and grinds the hard, yellow 
corn into soft flour. 

IV. 

The last motive of which I shall speak to- 
day is Purity. Our text, you will remember, 
is only one word; the whole verse reads, 
4 ' Wherewithal, shall a young man cleanse 
his way? by taking heed thereto according 
to thy word." This means, What motive or 
what means, shall a young man take, to keep 
himself free from sin ? And the answer is, 
not the motive of pleasure, or of profit, or of 
power; but the motive of purity — the de- 
sire to keep his soul pure and clean, by fol- 
lowing the word of God. 

Here in Boston, at twelve o'clock every 
day, from the observatory at Cambridge, the 
true time is struck by electricity over the 
wires, which sound the bells in the different 
churches. This is the official declaration of 
the true time, the right hour of the day. 
Then, when twelve o'clock is struck, if we 



288 The Interpreter's House. 

want to have the true time with our watches, 
we must set them by this standard, and must 
make them correspond to the signal from 
Cambridge. And just in the same way, if 
we want our hearts to be pure and true, we 
must rule them or set them by the signal 
of God's word. His law must be ours ; we 
must rule our lives, or take heed to our 
time, by setting our souls according to 
God's will, revealed to us in the Bible. Je- 
sus said, in the Sermon upon the Mount, 
" Blessed are the pure in heart: for they 
shall see God." We can not see out of 
windows that are soiled and dirty. We 
can not look through a spy-glass or a tele- 
scope, if the glass is blurred and darkened, 
by smoke or fog or soot. And we can not 
see God, or do his will, if our souls are 
darkened with sin and impurity. 

When the first missionaries at Madagas- 
car had converted some of the islanders 
there, a Christian sea-captain asked a former 
chief, what it was which first led him to 
become a Christian. 



Motives. 289 

" Was it any particular sermon you heard, 
or book which you read ? " asked the captain. 

u No, my friend," replied the chief, "it was 
no book or sermon. One man, he a wicked 
thief; another man, he drunk all day long; 
Big Chief, he beat his wife and children. 
Now, thief, he no steal; drunken Tom, he 
sober; Big Chief, he very kind to his family. 
Every heathen man get something inside 
him, which make him different; so I become 
a Christian, too, to know how it feel to have 
something strong inside of me, to keep me 
from being bad." 

Now that old chief had got the right idea 
of Christianity. He had got something new 
and strong inside of him, which made him 
go. He had got a new motive; his " Where- 
withal" was the desire to be true and pure. 
This was making him go, just as the water 
made the mill-wheel go, or the extra weight 
made the cuckoo clock strike. 

At one of the ragged schools in Ireland, a 
minister asked the poor children before him, 
"What is holiness?" Thereupon a poor lit- 



290 The Interpreter's House. 

tie Irish boy, in dirty, tattered rags, jumped 
up, and said, "Please your reverence, it's to 
be dean inside." Could any answer be truer? 

Here is my watch. It is a beautiful Louis 
XIV. watch; and I value it, because my dear 
little friends in Erookline, at the first Sun- 
day school I ever had, gave it to me. It was 
made to go well, and it ought to go well. 
But the first year, it went slow, and finally 
stopped. I took it to the watchmaker's to 
know what was the matter. He put on 
that mysterious eye-glass, which the watch- 
makers have, and screwed up his face until 
it looked like a squeezed lemon; then he 
said, "No wonder it won't go; the glass 
crystal is too loose; and all the dust in 
your vest pocket gets into the works, and 
clogs them." A loose crystal let the dirt in. 
It was just like a leak in a ship at sea. 

Well, my dear children, a great many of 
us have loose coverings to our souls. The 
dust and dirt get into our works, and we 
go slowly, and finally stop. There are open- 
ings in our characters, through which sin and 



Motives. 291 

temptation get into our hearts, and stop the 
works there. If we want truly to serve God, 
we must stop the cracks and the openings in 
our hearts. It is only purity, trueness, right- 
eousness, which can cleanse our souls, and 
make them keep time with God's word, 
which, like the sun, — the central standard 
of all true time, — is " settled forever in 
heaven." 

Now remember these lessons, — 

Pleasure, 

Profit, 

Power, 

Purity. 

These are four great motives; four " Where- 
vnthals" which make men and women go. 

Jesus said, in his last prayer for his disci- 
ples, " Sanctify them through thy truth: thy 
word is truth." This is just the answer of 
our text. How shall we live? Wherewithal 
shall we be kept pure? What shall be the 
motive power of our lives ? It must be God's 
word ruling us, or covering our souls. This 



292 The Interpreter's House. 

will be like the tight crystal, keeping out the 
dust and sin. This will be the "one thing 
needful." Our souls will be kept clean, and 
we will "go" by taking heed according to 
God's word! 



£^ 



XI. 

e m x n . 



MEMORY. 

"The cock crew . . . and Peter remembered." 
St. Matthew xxvi. 74, 75. 

CHE memory, is the most wonderful power 
of the mind. We have many wonder- 
ful things in our nature. The Psalmist says, 
in one place, "I am fearfully and wonderfully 
made." It is wonderful how we can walk 
and breathe. The human hand is the most 
delicately constructed instrument, that ever 
was devised to do work. The eye and 
the ear are remarkably formed. All our five 
senses, — hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, 
touching, — are like telegraph wires which 
send despatches to the central office, the 
brain. The memory is like an enormous 
file, on which bill receipts are stuck, and 
kept for reference. Every thing we hear 



296 The Interpreter's House. 

and see and learn, goes on file. Things are 
frequently forgotten for a little while, but 
nothing is ever lost in the mind. There 
are certain times in life, when the mind is 
aroused, in which every thing that has been 
once remembered, comes back again to the 
mind. 

Our sermon to-day is about memory. I 
am going to speak about three of its pow- 
ers, or faculties. 



First of all in memory, is, the power of 
grouping things. Writers, -who use big words, 
call this, "the law of association." But the 
other word will do for us. We all know, 
how in our memory, one idea or word 
leads up to another and suggests it. 

I remember a man who used to like to 
tell a funny story about a thunder-storm. 
He would try and get people to talk about 
the weather, so as to bring in this story. At 
last, when he could not bring this about, he 



Memory. 297 

would say, " I shouldn't wonder if we would 
have thunder soon;" then he would add, 
" Talking about thunder reminds me of a 
story," — and then, out the old thunder-storm 
story would come. Animals have this pow- 
er of associating facts, or grouping them, in 
their instincts. I knew a horse which had 
to go up a certain rough hill, where there 
were loose stones. One time a little stone 
got in her hoof, and made her lame. She 
stopped, and looked round at me, as much 
as to say, "Please get out and help me." 
So I got out of the carriage, looked her all 
over, found the stone, took it out, and gave 
her an apple. And ever afterwards, when 
I would come to that same place on the 
hill, Dolly would stop, and look round at 
me, and make believe she had a stone in 
her hoof, on purpose to have another pet- 
ting and another apple. 

There was a dog once, named Faust, that 
I used to play with. He would run for his 
masters slippers, when he came in the house, 
would carry the newspaper, home from the 



298 The Interpreter's House. 

post-office, and do all sorts of tricks. One 
time, when we were playing in the woods, 
Faust chased a rabbit into a hole, in an old 
tree. He barked at that hole all the rest 
of the afternoon, and whenever we went 
past that knothole, for years afterwards, 
Faust would begin to bark for the old rab- 
bit, which he once chasecl into that spot. 
The tree always reminded him of the rab- 
bit, and as soon as he saw the place, he 
associated it in his doggy mind, with the 
rabbit, which he believed was still in there. 

Now these words of our text to-day, give 
us a story about memory, or the power of 
association. Our Lord told his impulsive dis- 
ciple, Simon Peter, that in the excitement of 
the trial, and the seizure which awaited him, 
Peter would not only forsake him, but would 
also deny him. He told him that before the 
cock should crow twice, on the coming morn- 
ing, he would deny Jesus three separate 
times. Simon Peter said this could never 
be ; that though all men should forsake Jesus, 




I. H. 



p. 298. 



Memory. 299 

he would stand by him to the last. But Ju- 
das came with the armed soldiers, the dis- 
ciples forsook Jesus, and Simon Peter was 
frightened, and forgot all his brave speeches. 
He followed his Lord at a distance, first to 
the hall of the high priest, and then to the 
judgment hall of Pilate. In a few hours he 
had swung off entirely from his Master, and 
looked on at the trial, just as if he were a 
stranger to Jesus. One of the servant girls 
in the doorway, told the soldiers, that Peter 
was one of Jesus' disciples. Peter denied 
this. Then another person said he was a 
disciple ; for he was a Gallilean, and his 
speech betrayed him, because it showed that 
he came from the North Country, where Je- 
sus had lived. Then Peter swore, and de- 
nied it again. After this, some one else in 
the hall, said that Peter was a follower of 
the man who was going to be crucified; 
and Peter denied it again. Just then a cock 
crew, out in some barnyard n$ar the house, 
for it was between two and three o'clock 
in the morning, and Jesus caught the eye 



300 The Interpreter's House. 

of Peter afar off in the crowd. Then it 
all flashed upon Peter s mind what he had 
done. We read that, " The cock crew . -. . 
and Peter remembered the word of Jesus, 
which said unto him, Before the cock crow, 
thou shalt deny me thrice. And," we read, 
"he went out, and wept bitterly." 

It was this crowing of the cock which re- 
minded Simon Peter of his fall ! How little 
that cock, as he saw the first gray streaks 
of the morning light, thought of the way in 
which his shrill crowing, was a link between 
Jesus the Saviour, and Peter the sinner and 
the denier. Yet his voice in the early morn- 
ing, reaching into the hall of the Jewish 
high priest, recalled all the past to Peter, 
and caused him to rush out, and weep 
bitterly. 

Now this power of the memory in associ- 
ating things, or in grouping them together, 
is very wonderful. I don't suppose Simon 
Peter, ever heard a cock crowing after that, 
without thinking of his denial of Jesus. The 
cock crowing, was indelibly fastened upon his 



Memory. 301 

memory, in connection with his denial of 
his Master. 

It is very wonderful how old, well-known 
sounds, will bring up old, familiar faces. If 
you are alone in a strange land, and can 
not understand the language of the people, 
and hear a dog bark in the night, or hear 
the cocks crowing early in the morning, it 
sounds very natural, and carries you back 
to the old days at home. It actually keeps 
one from being lonely, to hear these familiar 
sounds. It seems so much like old times! 
And you know that old song, which says, — 

"Oft in the stilly night, 

Ere slumber's chains have bound me, 
Fond memory brings the light 
Of other days around me; 
The hopes and fears, 
Of childhood's years, 
The words of love then spoken." 

We can remember texts of the Bible, and 
verses of hymns, in this way, and when we 
hear them, they do not come to us separately, 
but they group with them, by this law of 



302 The Interpreter's House. 

association, as it is called, the forms and 
faces of other days. 



II. 



The second thing that is so wonderful in 
memory is, its power of retaining things. 

When we are young, our memory is very 
retentive. Things which we learn and read 
and hear then, will be remembered long after 
other things are forgotten. In our child- 
hood days, our memory is like the instan- 
taneous impression which is made on a 
photographic plate, by an out-of-doors pict- 
ure. In our older days, our memory is 
like the impression made on the plate, by 
a picture taken in the afternoon, and taken 
in-doors ; it takes a very long time then 
for the plate to receive any impression at 
all. Think how quickly we learn at school, 
the rules of Latin grammar ; we know right 
off, the names of those prepositions which 
govern the accusative, and those which gov- 
ern the ablative. We learn our speeches for 



Memory. 303 

school quickly. We learn our texts, and 
hymns for Sunday school, in a very short 
time. 

When we are little, we can learn, very 
quickly, French or German or Music. Our 
minds have the power of retaining things, 
which we learn then, in a way we do 
not have afterwards. Our minds are like 
the young twigs of a tree, or the twists of 
candy, which are bent and formed before 
they become hardened. If we try to bend 
them afterwards, we will only break them. 
You know there is an old proverb which 
says, " Strike while the iron is hot." A 
blacksmith can not form a horse shoe, when 
it is cold and hard; it must be soft and hot; 
then when he hammers it, on the anvil, he 
can form it into shape, and can drive the nec- 
essary holes into it. It will retain the im- 
pressions of the nails and the hammer, sim- 
ply because it is soft and red-hot. 

And our minds in our childhood days, are 
like the red-hot iron on the anvil. The mem- 
ory retains impressions then, better than at 



304 The Interpreter's House. 

any other time afterwards: kind words re- 
main in the mind which were spoken then; 
bad words and naughty stories, which we 
hear from other boys and girls, will remain, 
long after the things we hear in later days, 
are forgotten. OA, how bad words stick! It 
seems as if we can never outgrow the remem- 
brance of them. There are certain associa- 
tions, which it seems as if we never can 
forget. It is dreadful not to be able to for- 
get bad things; it is dreadful to think that 
we can not lose sight of the things, which we 
have done that are wrong. It is this won- 
derful power of the memory, in retaining 
things, which proves to us that we are to 
live hereafter, in another world, and are im- 
mortal; for we go through many lives in the 
course of this world, and yet we retain our 
identity. 

I don't suppose that Simon Peter, if he 
were to come back to earth to day, and were 
to hear a cock crow in the early morning, 
would ever forget, what that sound meant 
to him. "The cock crew. . . and Pe- 



Memory. 305 

ter remembered." The memory is an im- 
mortal thing, even here in this life, in its 
power of retaining things. 

III. 

The third wonderful thing in memory is, 
its power of recalling things. How frequently 
we try to think of a thing, or of a person's 
name, which we have forgotten, and it will 
not come to us, until some other object, re- 
calls the forgotten name. We think of the 
place, or the house, where we first met the 
person, and when we think of the side ob- 
ject, it very often happens, that this will 
bring to our mind the name we are wanting. 

A hymn and a tune always go together; 
the one suggests the other. A place and a 
song are always united. The place where 
we heard any thing, that made an impres- 
sion upon us, will be sure to bring up to 
the mind, the thing itself. In this way, one 
thing is linked with another. 

The Greek word for conversation means a 
20 



306 The Interpreter's House. 

leader, or general; because, just as a gen- 
eral leads his soldiers to battle, or on a 
march, so one word or thought leads the 
mind to another one, or recalls the next idea. 
Another wonderful thing about the mind is, 
the power of the will over it. We can go 
to sleep at night, if we train our mind to 
it, and can wake up, at the hour we willed 
to wake up, in the morning, if we let the 
thought of the waking hour, be the last 
thought we had before going to sleep. And 
in this way, we have a picture of what it 
must be to die, and then rise again from our 
bed of death and the grave, just as we wake 
up in the morning. 

It is said, that when people are drowning, 
every thing that they have said or done, 
comes before their mind, as in a vision. 
Nothing is ever lost or forgotten, and all the 
events of their life come before them. 

I remember a boy in school, who was 
taken out of the river in an unconscious 
state, after he had gone under the water. 
He told me afterwards, that every thing he 



Memory. 307 

had ever done, came right before his mind, 
just as a flash of lightning in the dark, 
shows for a moment, every thing around us. 

Now, this is very strange: and it may be, 
my dear children, that what is meant in the 
Bible, by the books being opened at the 
Day of Judgment, is simply, that our own 
memory will reveal to us, all that we have 
done in our past lives, as the flash of light- 
ning in the dark, shows us our way on the 
road. 

Therefore we ought to try and store our 
minds, now, with good words and thoughts, 
so that the remembrance of our deeds, will 
not condemn us, when we stand in the pres- 
ence of God, the Judge of all. 

1st. Power of grouping things. 

2d. Power of retaining things. 

3d. Poiver of recalling things. 

These are the three wonderful gifts, with 
which the memory enriches us. 

Even a little thing in this life, may last in 
the mind, as long as the mind endures ; even 



308 The Interpreter's House. 

a little word or deed, may never be forgot- 
ten, in this world or in the world to come. 
Poor Simon Peter! I wonder if he could 
ever forget that early morning in the high 
priest's hall, when, "The cock crew . . . 
and Peter remembered" — that he had denied 
his Master! 



XII. 

plotting, ^foag. 



RUNNING AWAY. 

" Arise, go to Nineveh . . . But Jonah found a 
ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, 
and went down ... to Tarshish from the presence 
of the Lord." — Jonah i. 2, 3. 

CHERE is a certain time in almost every 
boy's life, when he thinks that it would 
be a fine thing to run away. Perhaps things 
go wrong at home, or he is punished at 
school, or he is blamed for being late at 
meals, or the family threaten to send him 
to boarding-school, if he is not a better boy, 
or reports come home from the principal of 
the school, that he will soon have to be 
dropped, if he does not study more. Then 
the boy feels that they do not understand 
him at home. They keep saying, " Don't do 
this," or, " Don't do that," all the time. They 
won't let him do any thing. They won't let 



312 The Interpreter's House. 

him make any thing, in the back yard, and 
so he thinks he will run away from home. 
The circus boys on the little ponies, don't 
have to be bothered about their lessons all 
the time. The poor barefoot boys from the 
marsh, in the village, go fishing every after- 
noon. They go up the brooks in the spring- 
time, and get all the first trout; or they 
know the places on the dock, in which to 
throw their lines for those fish, whose home 
is in the green slime, under the bottoms of 
the vessels. 

And then, too, when the boy, who feels 
he is ill-treated at home, reads about "Kob- 
inson Crusoe," or the "Swiss Family Kobin- 
son," or the adventures of such explorers, as 
Vasco Da Gama or Magellan, or wanders 
along the wharves, and sees the ships un- 
loading their cargoes, and hears the sailors 
singing, and the windlasses creaking, and 
smells the tar on the ropes, it all seems too 
much for him, and he feels that he must run 
away from home. 

But my advice to-day, to all boys who 



Running Away. 313 

feel like running away from home, is simply 
this — 

DON'T! 

And I'll tell you why I say don't. 

First, Because if you run away from some 
old trouble, you will find a new trouble, hid- 
ing behind the corner of the future for you. 

Secondly, Because if you run away from 
your duties of to-day, you will find new 
duties awaiting you to-morrow; and, 

Thirdly, Because if you run away from 
those who love and sympathize with you 
now, you may never find any others to care 
for you again. 

Some time ago, in walking through the 
woods, I came across a young robin, run- 
ning before me on the ground. He could 
not fly, and I soon caught him. He tried to 
bite my hand, but there was no use in this, 
and after a while he gave it up as useless. 
Then I heard a great racket and noise in 
a nest overhead. His father and mother 
were flying about at a great rate, and were 



314 The Interpreter's House. 

making a terrible ado. I put him back 
again, among his brothers and sisters, and 
then his father and mother came and gave 
him a great talking to, as I walked away. 
That little fellow had run away from home, 
and was glad enough to get back; he had 
thought the nest was too small for him, 
and so he had tried his wings, out in the 
world, and had fallen to the ground, and 
had come to grief. 

Now, boys, that is a picture of what hap- 
pens to us, when we try to run away from 
our duties at home ; only we are not all safe- 
ly landed back in the nest again, as my wil- 
ful, pecking little robin was. 

I want to speak to you to-day about "Kun- 
ning away," and I have taken our text from 
the story of Jonah. 

I remember, when I was a little boy, in 
the infant school of old St. Paul's Church, 
Philadelphia, learning an alphabet card with 
these words on it, — 

"I, is for Isaac, that dutiful son; 
J, is for Jonah: who from duty did run ! " 



Running Away. 315 

Now it is about Jonah, and the trouble 
he got into by running away from his 
duty, that I want to speak to you to-day. 

This is the story. About the year 862 b. c, 
God sent a message into the mind of his ser- 
vant, the prophet Jonah, telling him to go 
and cry out against the wickedness of Nine- 
veh, and tell the people of their sins. Nine- 
veh was the largest city in the world at that 
time, and it was the most wicked and cor- 
rupt place on the face of the earth. It was a 
city full of ignorant people, poor slaves, and 
toilers of the land. We read in the proph- 
ecy of Jonah, that there were sixscore thou- 
sand persons who were not able to discern be- 
tween their right hand and their left hand; 
that is, — there were one hundred and twenty 
thousand persons so ignorant that they could 
not tell their right hand from their left hand. 
No doubt many of this number were lit- 
tle children, and babies, who could not talk. 
However this may be, it was a very long 
journey for Jonah to take alone; he would 
have to go over desert plains, far to the east, 



316 The Interpreter's House. 

and would have to cross the rivers Orontes, 
Euphrates, and Chebar, until he came to the 
great city of Nineveh, on the river Tigris. 
Jonah was frightened at the thought of go- 
ing alone to face the Ninevites, and tell them 
all, from the king on his throne, down to the 
most ignorant slave in the field, that in forty 
days their great city would be overthrown. 
So, as he could not stand up to his duty, 
Jonah thought that the best thing under 
the circumstances was to disappear, and be 
" missing." No doubt his friends and rela- 
tives said, in the little town of Gath-hepher, 
where he lived, " What has become of Jo- 
nah ? " " Where has the prophet gone ? " "I 
wonder what he is about now ? " 

But, all this time, Jonah was trying to run 
away from God, and from his duty, and from 
the trouble, which this long journey away off 
to Nineveh involved. I wonder if Jonah had 
ever heard, or read, those words of the 139th 
Psalm, — or, if he had read them, I wonder 
if he had forgotten them, — " Whither shall I 
go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee 



Running Away. 317 

from thy presence ? ... If I take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea; even there shall thy 
hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold 
me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall 
cover me; even the night shall be light 
about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not 
from thee ; but the night shineth as the day : 
the darkness and the light are both alike 
to thee." However this may be, Jonah, in- 
stead of facing about, and marching right 
off to Nineveh, as St. Paul would have done, 
tried to run away from this duty, which God 
called him to do. He hurried off to Joppa, 
where, I have no doubt, when he was a boy, 
he had watched the vessels sail out of port, 
into the Mediterranean Sea, and come la- 
den into the harbor from foreign countries. 
There he found a ship, just starting off, and 
as it made no difference where he sailed to, 
he paid his fare, and hurried on board, and 
sailed to Tarshish. This Tarshish may have 
been Tartessus far off in Spain, on the Guad- 
alquiver River, or it may have been Tarsus in 



318 The Interpreter's House. 

Cilicia, in Asia Minor, the place where St. 
Paul was brought up as a boy. But, which- 
ever place it was, Jonah had a very stormy 
voyage, and found that he only plunged him- 
self into greater trouble than he was in be- 
fore, when he tried to run away from God. 
We all know the rest of the story, — how 
he was thrown overboard, and was punished, 
by being held in the cavernous insides of 
some great fish, and had to go, after all, 
to Nineveh, and tell the people they must 
repent. But he was a quick-tempered, an- 
gry, petulant, man, and was actually dis- 
appointed, because the people of Nineveh 
repented, and thus deprived him of the ex- 
citement of seeing the city overthrown, as 
he sat under his booth on the hillside, and 
watched for his prophecy to come true. He 
acted just like some big boy, who wants to 
see a house burn down at a fire, and is sor- 
ry that the fire department is so prompt, 
that they have put the fire out before he 
got there to see it. He behaved like the boy 
I spoke about in opening, who thinks that 



Running Away. 319 

he is badly treated at home, and therefore 
makes up his mind to run away. 

I want to speak to-day of three kinds of 
running away. 



I. 



First of all, there is the running away from 
trouble. 

We must all of us have trouble in this 
world. We can not get away from this fact. 
We might as well try to run away from our 
shadows, as to run away from trouble. Job 
says, "Man is born unto trouble, as the 
sparks fly upward." It is all right for us to 
run away from the troubles which we make 
for ourselves, but not from those troubles 
which God sends for us to bear. We can 
not expect God to give us his power, to help 
us bear the troubles we make for ourselves; 
but we have a right to ask him to give us 
his strength, to bear the burdens, he sees fit 
to lay upon us. It is the meaning of trial, to 
make us get nearer to God. 



320 The Interpreter's House. 

I have often watched, on the sea-shore in 
September, the men who fire at coot and 
black ducks, from the boats in the water. A 
long string of ducks will come along the 
water's edge, curling in and out, bunching 
up together, and then lengthening out like 
the long pennant on a man-of-war. Sud- 
denly a gun will be fired; some of the ducks 
will fall, and the others will mount right up 
in the sky; another gun will be fired, and 
the birds will mount up still higher. It is 
the trouble in their midst, which drives them 
up, far above the world and its gunshots. 
And so it ought to be with us ; our troubles 
ought to drive us up higher, nearer to God, 
than we were before. 

There was an old monk once, who could 
not get on with his brother monks, in the 
monastery. They were quarrelling and fight- 
ing all the time. At last he resolved to leave 
them, since he was so often betrayed into 
anger and other sins. He made up his 
mind that he would retire into the desert, 
and live in a cell there, away from his fellow- 



Running- Away. 321 

men. He hoped that in this solitude, he 
could serve God with an easier mind than 
before. One day, soon after he entered his 
new cell, he upset his pitcher, and spilt all 
the milk; then he bumped his head against 
the rock, and cut his foot with a piece of the 
broken crockery; this made him so angry, 
that he deliberately threw down his water 
jug, and dashed it to pieces. Then he began 
to curse and swear, and was met by his 
former abbot, who had come into his retreat 
at that very moment, to see how he was 
getting on in his new quarters. 

"Ah, Brother Dominic," said the abbot, 
u who has been troubling you now?" 

"The same old wretch" replied the monk, 
"who troubled me in the monastery. His 
name is — Dominic." 

After that, he went back again to his com- 
panions, and found that if he would really 
run away from his troubles, he must first of 
all run away from himself. 

Jonah ran away, because he was afraid to 
do God's will. It was the trouble in his path 



322 The Interpreter's House. 

which frightened him. He thought if he 
could only get away from duty, he could get 
away from trouble ; but trouble followed him, 
just as a man's shadow follows him, no mat- 
ter how fast he may run ! 

When John Chrysostom, the eloquent bish- 
op of Constantinople, was driven out into 
banishment by the cruel empress, Eudoxia, 
who was angered by his boldness of speech 
in rebuking her for her sins, some of his 
friends asked him, if he was not afraid to in- 
cur the Imperial hatred. 

"Will she banish me?" said Chrysostom. 
"Then I say to myself 'The earth is the 
Lord's and the fulness thereof.' Will she 
take away my goods? Then I can say, 'Na- 
ked came I into this world, and naked must 
I return.' Will she stone me? I remem- 
bered Stephen! Will she behead me? Then 
I bethought me of John the Baptist!" 

This was very brave. God does not want 
us to run away, from the trouble he sends 
upon us. He wants us to stand up to it, 
and bear it. Jonah found that the sea was 



Running Away. 323 

worse, after all, than the journey to Nineveh, 
and that he did not get away from trouble, 
because he got away from duty. 

II. 

The second kind of running away is, the 
running aivay from duty. 

When Christian and Hopeful, in " Pilgrim's 
Progress," fell into the hands of Giant De- 
spair, in Doubting Castle, it was because 
they left the highway, on the journey to the 
Celestial City, and entered By-path Meadow, 
which led them into trouble. And when we 
run away from duty, we generally get into 
trouble. There is always some avenging 
whale, which swims after us, when we go 
to the Tarshish of our own wills, rather than 
go where God tells us to go, even if it be to 
Nineveh. 

A planter once asked a colored slave, if he 
thought he ought to do whatever God told 
him. 

"Yes, massah," said the slave. "Whatever 



324 The Interpreter's House. 

de good Lord tell me to do, dat I'm gwine 
to do." 

"Well, Jim," said the planter, "but sup- 
pose you should find in the Bible, that God 
wanted you to jump through a stone wall, 
what would you do then ? " 

"I'd jump, massah," replied Jim. 

"What! jump into a stone wall, and break 
your head?" asked the planter. 

"Yes, massah," answered Jim, "I'd jump; 
for you see, jumpin' at de wall, dat belongs 
to me; but gettin' me troo de wall, dat's de 
Lords part ob de bargain." 

Now it is a great thing not to run away 
from one's post of duty. A soldier who runs 
away in battle, is a deserter, and deserves 
to be shot. 

On board the steamer Owasco, at the bat- 
tle of Galveston, there was an old man-of- 
war's-man, who wanted to set an example to 
the new marines, who were frightened, when 
the shot and shell began to fly. First he had 
two fingers shot off and was ordered be- 
low ; but he tied a handkerchief about them, 



Running Away. 325 

and soon was on deck again. Half an hour 
afterwards he was shot through the shoulder, 
and was ordered below a second time, but 
replied, "No, sir; I'll stay on deck, as long as 
there is any fighting to be done." And then 
at the roll-call, after the battle, he stood at 
his post, ready for duty, and was very much 
displeased, when he was told that he must 
report to the hospital! Now this was the 
very spirit of St. Paul. He was not afraid 
of any perils, by land or by water. But if 
Jonah had been told to do, what St. Paul 
was called to do, he would have run away a 
second time. 

In the ancient story of the Trojan War, 
when the Greek leaders were uniting their 
forces, to conquer Troy, they sent a messen- 
ger, named Palamedes, to Ithaca, to invite 
Ulysses to join in the expedition. Ulysses 
did not want to go; so when he saw the 
messenger coming, he began to plough 
the sand, and to sow it with salt, on purpose 
to make them think, that he was out of 
his mind. 



326 The Interpreter's House. 

It is very wonderful, how this spirit of 
wanting to run away, takes hold of people 
at times, when they stand face to face with 
some unpleasant duty. People become like 
balky horses, or horses that will not put the 
bits in their mouth : they will do any thing, 
or run to any place, rather than do the un- 
pleasant duty. 

A lazy, miserable man, named Mike, in 
a certain village, was always begging for 
work, but always shirked it when it came, 
and got off with the money. One day a 
friend came to see him. Mike was the 
picture of woe. 

"What's the matter, mon?" asked his 
friend. " Ha'e ye got the fever at home ? " 

"Worse than that," said Mike. 

"Ha'e ye got the rheumatics?" 

"Nay, mon," said Mike, "it's worse nor 
that." 

"Hey, mon!" said his friend, "what ha'e 
ye got?" 

"I've got a job of work," groaned Mike in 
a harsh whisper. 



Running Away. 327 

"Arise, go to Nineveh. . . . But Jo- 
nah rose up to flee unto Tarshish." This is 
the picture, my dear children, of the way we 
run away from duty. In other words, we are 
too often like Mike, and love to shirk our 
duties. 



III. 



The third kind of running away, of which 
I shall speak in this sermon, is the running 
away from sympathy. 

We ought never to run away, from those 
persons who need us. I have known boys 
to steal out of the back gate, when they 
thought that they were wanted to run er- 
rands, or when their little brothers and sis- 
ters were looking for them, to play with. 

I remember some boys who used to go 
out and fly their kites on an open common, 
every Saturday afternoon. The little broth- 
er of these boys, always wanted to go with 
them, but the big boys did not care to be 
bothered with him ; so they would say, — 



328 The Interpreter's House. 

"Now, Dickie, go and ask your mother if 
you can go." 

" And then Dickie would hurry upstairs, 
to find out if he could go. Whereupon the 
big brother would say, — 

"Now, fellows, run! Eun, while Dickie 
is upstairs ! " 

And, in very much this same way, Jonah 
seems never once to have thought how much 
he was needed at Nineveh, or how much 
good he could do there. There were all 
those poor, ignorant people living in wick- 
edness, and God had called him to do them 
good ; and yet all he seemed to think of, 
was how he could run away from these peo- 
ple, as the boys ran off, and left poor little 
Dickie in the lurch. 

When the great duke of Marlborough was 
storming the city of Mons, the duke of Ar- 
gyle, joined an attacking corps, just as it was 
on the point of shrinking from the contest. 
Pushing among them, open breasted, he ex- 
claimed, "See me, my men! I have no con- 
cealed armor; I am equally exposed with 



Running Away. 329 

you. I require nobody to go where I shall 
refuse to venture." This spirit animated the 
flagging soldiers; the assault was made a 
second time, and the work was carried. 

Now, my dear children, God does not want 
any of us, men or women, or boys or girls, 
to run away from those who need us. We 
must be kind, and tender-hearted, and sym- 
pathizing to those who are about us, if we 
really want to do them any good. St. Paul 
has told us to bear one another's burdens, 
and thus to fulfil the law of Christ. 

There was once a poor old blind soldier, 
in the streets of Vienna, trying to make a 
little money by playing on a violin. His 
little dog led him by a string, but nobody 
thought of the blind beggar, as the crowd 
pressed on. 

At last a stranger, passing by, looked 
at the poor blind man, and said, "Let me 
have your violin." He took it, placed it 
to his shoulder, and began to play a beau- 
tiful air upon the instrument. Presently a 
crowd gathered on the spot; the stranger 



330 The Interpreter's House. 

went on playing; a hat was passed around, 
and a large collection of silver coins was 
made for the blind soldier. It was Armand 
Boucher, the famous violin player, who had 
taken an hour of his valuable time to make 
a poor old soldier happy, with this generous 
donation from the crowd. 

How much we can do, for those who need 
our help, if, instead of hurrying away from 
scenes of misery and trouble, we stop a few 
moments, to try and help the afflicted ! How 
true are those words of the hymn, — 

"To comfort, and to bless, 
To find a balm for woe, 
To tend the lone and fatherless, 
Is angels' work below!" 

My dear children, do not run away, when 
God calls you to do any thing for him ! If 
the Lord has need of you, try and serve 
him. 

1st. Do not run away from trouble. 
2d. Do not run away from duty. 
3d. Do not run away from sympathy. 



Running Away. 331 

For, if you do, you will have a hard time of 
it, as Jonah had, when God said, " Arise, go 
to Nineveh," and when, instead of doing 
this, he "rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from 
the presence of the Lord." 



XIII. 

nflneiue. 



INFLUENCE. 

"And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus 
and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel." 
II Kings v. 4. 

3(jf) YS and girls have a great influence in 
(37 the world, though perhaps they do not 
know it. 

When Themistocles was ruling Athens, he 
took his little boy by his hand, and, lifting 
him up on his shoulders, said to his coun- 
cillors, "This boy is the real ruler of Greece." 
The councillors asked Themistocles how this 
was. He replied, "Athens rules Greece; I 
rule Athens; my wife rules me, and this 
boy rules his mother." 

Our influence over one another is very 
great. The pilot in the wheelhouse, turns 
the wheel a little to the right or left, and the 
vessel immediately changes her course. The 



336 The Interpreter's House. 

little boy on the horse, pulls the reins to one 
side, and the great big animal, obeys the lit- 
tle fellow's will. The moon in the heavens, 
sends down her unseen attraction, to the 
waters of the ocean, and the water tries to 
mount up to the moon, and this it is which 
gives us our tides on the sea-shore. The 
world is full of examples of influence, or the 
way one person or thing affects another. 
But we do not stop to realize how it is, that 
our words and actions, when we are young, 
influence those about us. The prophet Isa- 
iah, when he was describing the millennium, 
said that the lion would eat straw like an ox, 
and that a little child should lead them. 
How very much we learn from each other 
w r hen we are young! You children go to 
school, and pick up all sorts of new words, 
and sayings, and habits, from the children 
you play with. You do as the other boys 
and girls do; you imitate the big boys and 
girls; you use their words, and play "follow 
the leader " with them all the time. One or 
two big boys and girls in a school, will set 



Influence. 337 

the fashion, to all the little children there. 
If they come with the latest kind of satchel, 
or a new-fashioned strap, or tin lunch-box, 
or patent slate-pencil, or crayon-holder, then 
all the other boys and girls will want the 
same things. And you know, my dear chil- 
dren, how many things, you are continually 
learning, not only from your parents and 
teachers, but from one another ; things which 
you never forget! 

Our sermon to-day is about a little girl's 
influence. It is the story of what a poor lit- 
tle captive child could do. 

This is the story. About the year 894 b. c, 
when there were continual border wars be- 
tween the kings of Syria, and Israel, there 
was a general of the king of Syria, named 
Naaman. He was a great captain, and was 
very much esteemed, but he was a leper, and 
'was shut out from going with other people, 
and had to keep to himself. In one of these 
border raids, the Syrians had taken some cap- 
tives from the Israelites, and among these, 
was a little maid, who became a servant, or 
22 



338 The Interpreter's House. 

waiting woman upon the wife of Naaman. 
We do not know her name or age, or any 
thing about her, more than this. I suppose 
she used to attend upon the wife of Naaman, 
and help to dress her, and arrange her hair. 
Somehow, people always become talkative 
and confidential, when they are having their 
heads dressed and combed. It is very pleas- 
ant to sit in a barber s chair, and have him 
shampoo one's head; it makes us feel kind- 
hearted and good-natured. All animals like 
to be rubbed, and fussed over. A cat will 
come up, and rub herself against your feet, 
to be patted and stroked, and a dog will 
stand by the hour, to be scratched with a 
cane. It's always a time when we feel like 
talking, and ladies who have much back hair 
to do up, become very communicative at such 
times. So, I suppose, in some such way as 
this, this little maid, instead of groaning and 
sighing over herself, and her hard lot in 
being a captive, away from her father and 
mother, said, " Oh, how I wish that Captain 
Naaman, or General Naaman (or whatever 



Influence. 339 

they called him), would try our prophet in 
Samaria: he would soon cure him of his lep- 
rosy." I suppose Naaman's wife, had been 
talking with this little maid, about all the 
medicines and ointments of the Syrian doc- 
tors, and how much her husband had to 
pay for them all. People never like to pay 
money for medicine, or to doctors, when they 
get no good results from them. Naaman's 
wife may have been talking in this way 
about her husband. And then the little Is- 
raelitish girl, told her about their prophet, 
just as we talk about "our doctor." 

Somebody heard her talking in this way, 
and went in and said to him, "Well, Naa- 
man, why don't you try the Israelitish proph- 
et, after all? He does perform the most won- 
derful cures, ever heard of in the world. His 
name is Elisha. Why don't you go to him ? 
He couldn't do you any harm; never mind 
if he is an Israelite, try him" 

Now the Syrians hated the Israelites, about 
as much as the Eussians of to-day, hate and 
abominate the Turks. It was a hard pill to 



340 The Interpreter's House. 

have to swallow, this going as a beggar, to 
the door of the prophet of the people, whom 
he hated so much. But, as he thought it all 
over, he made up his mind, he might as well 
try any thing, that had the chance of hope in 
it. So he went with his soldiers, and char- 
iots, and his gifts, all the way to the door of 
the prophet's house, in the kingdom of Israel. 
We all know the rest of the story : how 
angry he was at first, and how at last he con- 
sented to go down in the river Jordan, and 
be washed seven times, and was cleansed 
of his dreadful disease. But, after all, it 
was this little Israelitish girl, who waited 
on Naaman's wife, who first suggested the 
prophet Elisha, and said to her mistress, 
" Would God my lord were with the prophet 
that is in Samaria ! for he would recover him 
of his leprosy." 

Our sermon to day is about influence, or 
what a child can do. 

There are two kinds of influence in the 
world. 



Influence. 341 

I. 

First, there is conscious influence. 

I mean by this, the kind of influence we 
feel and know we have. A boy's mother 
says to him, "Now, Eobbie, you are going to 
the children's party, at the Christmas-tree, at 
your Aunt Hannah's. Be a good boy ; don't 
eat too much candy ; don't be rough with the 
little girls; and don't keep your hands in 
your pockets." That boy goes off to the 
Christmas-tree, feeling conscious that he has 
got some duties to perform. He is conscious 
of what is expected of him, and if he minds 
his mother's words to him, his example will 
be a good one, and he will know that he 
has been a good boy. 

Look at the sun in the heavens on a morn- 
ing in June! The world is flooded with 
light, and every thing in the forests, and on 
the ocean, seems to answer back to the sun, 
to tell him that they know that he is shining. 
The sun seems to be conscious of his power, 
and the flowers and plants seem to be con- 



342 The Interpreter's House. 

scious that they are growing, and we can 
almost fed the life, that is in the growing 
world, move. And, so it is at times with 
our influence. We can feel it! 

When Lord Peterborough, the English 
courtier, lodged for awhile with Fenelon, the 
pious French Bishop of Cambray, he was so 
delighted, with the beauty and loveliness of 
the Christian spirit in his home, that he ex- 
claimed, "Carry me off! for if I stay here 
any longer, I shall soon be a Christian, in 
spite of myself." 

When a minister preaches, or a Christian 
does good to his fellow-men in any way, this 
influence is a conscious one. They are try- 
ing to accomplish something definite, in the 
way of doing good, and they know what they 
are striving for. Our Saviour said, at one 
time, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men 
unto me ! " He meant by this, that he knew 
his power over men, and felt that his love 
would be able to draw the world to him. 
And, in this way, many people know and feel 
their power and influence, over other men. 



Influence. 343 

The prophet Elisha must have known his 
power; King Solomon knew his power; and 
Daniel must have felt very strong, when the 
lions walked around him in the den, and 
came up to him to be patted, while the king 
and the nobles looked on and wondered what 
it all meant. 

When Henry III. was king of France, he 
inquired why it was, that the duke of Guise 
appeared to charm every body, and he him- 
self did not. Every one was in love with the 
duke, but no one seemed to care any thing 
for the king; and this made the king very 
jealous. At last one of his courtiers said to 
the king, "Please your majesty, I will ex- 
plain this to you. You see, the duke of 
Guise has power, and he knows it; and the 
more he realizes it, the more he exerts it. 
He endeavors to do kind things to all people, 
without exception, either directly by himself, 
or indirectly by his recommendation. He is 
civil, courteous, liberal; has always some- 
thing good to say of every body, and never 
speaks ill of any. And this is the reason 



344 The Interpreter's House. 

why he rules men's hearts, while your maj- 
esty only rules the affairs of the kingdom." 

Now it is a great stimulus to us, to know 
our power, when we use it rightly. 

In the early days of the French Kevolution, 
the school boys of Bourges formed themselves 
into a military company, which they called 
the Band of Hope. When their flag was un- 
furled, it displayed, in shining letters, the 
sentence — 



TREMBLE 

TYRANTS/ 
We Shall Grow Up! 



Influence. 345 

The boys in that French school, meant to 
tell the nation, in those dreadful days of rev- 
olution, that, though they were only boys 
then, there would be a time when the nation 
should feel their power. That flag in the 
French school, waved this lesson of con- 
scious influence. 



II. 



The other kind of influence is, unconscious 
influence. I doubt, if this little girl in Na- 
aman's family, knew how much good she 
was doing, when she told her mistress about 
the wonderful cures of Elisha. I do not 
think she realized her influence. Some- 
times the best work done, is that which is 
unthought of, at the time. Bishop Heber 
wrote his beautiful hymn, "From Greenland's 
icy mountains," in a few minutes, for a mis- 
sionary meeting which was to be held, that 
day, in a friend's parish. And Lord Byron 
wrote his wonderful poem, "The Prisoner of 
Chillon," when he was detained at Vevey, on 



346 The Interpreter's House. 

the lake of Geneva, by a rain storm, and had 
nothing to do, and no books to read. And it 
very often happens, that what we do uncon- 
sciously, is done the best. The sun shines 
on the earth and on the moon; but when 
we have the beautiful moonbeams, silvering 
every thing with their soft and gentle light, 
it is after all only unconscious sunlight. 
The sun has set, and is afar off, and doesn't 
seem to know, that it gives the moon all this 
borrowed light, making every thing more 
beautiful by it. 

A mother sent her little girl, to have her 
photograph taken. When the picture came 
home, the little girl's eyes were staring out 
of her head, her hands were as large as a 
man's, and the whole thing was as stiff as 
a ramrod. The little girl was trying to look 
pretty, and the effort could be plainly seen 
in the picture; but all the prettiness was 
gone. A little while afterwards, the photog- 
rapher asked her to sit down, and read a 
wonderful fairy story, he had. So the child 
sat down, and was photographed, before she 



Influence. 347 

knew it, and the unconscious photograph, 
was a great deal better than the conscious 
one. 

Now none of us can tell, just how it is, or 
when it is, that we are influencing others 
the most. Our words, our deeds, our very 
attitudes and tones, have an influence upon 
others, which we do not measure ourselves. 
This is the secret power of advertising, in 
business. People see certain things adver- 
tised in the papers, on fences, along the 
roadside, on the rocks, and by walking men 
on the streets, and at last they become un- 
consciously influenced, and they buy the 
"Sozodont," or the "Rising Sun Stove Pol- 
ish," or the " Centaur Liniment." The will 
gives way, under this pressure of advertising, 
and, unconsciously, the buyer is influenced, 
by all this printed praise. We see this un- 
conscious influence around us, continually. 

On one occasion, the great engineer, George 
Stephenson, the man who invented the loco- 
motive, was with Sir Robert Peel and some 
other friends, watching a railway train flash- 



348 The Interpreter's House. 

ing along, and throwing behind it a long 
line of white steam. 

"Now r , gentlemen," said Mr. Stephenson, 
"tell me, what is the power that is driving 
that train ? " 

" I suppose it is one of your big engines," 
remarked one of the party. 

" Yes," said the inventor. " But what 
drives the engine?" 

"Oh," replied another, "some sturdy fire- 
man!" 

"Nay, gentlemen" said Mr. Stephenson; 
"it is nothing less than the light of the sun. 
It is light bottled up in the earth, for tens 
of thousands of years; light absorbed by 
plants and vegetables, being necessary for 
the condensation of carbon, during the pro- 
cess of their growth; and now, after being 
buried in the earth for long ages, in fields 
of coal, that same latent light, is again 
brought forth and liberated, and made to 
work, as in that locomotive, for great hu- 
man purposes." 

Think of this unconscious influence, of the 



Influence. 349 

rays of the sun, hidden in the coal beds, and 
then brought to light, and put to work, in 
the red-hot furnace of the steam-engine. 

So then the lesson of our story to-day is 
this: we all have our influence; "even a 
child is known by his doings." We are all 
influencing those about us, consciously or 
unconsciously, for good or for evil. Don't 
think, dear children, that you can do no good 
in the world, because you are not grown- 
up men and women. It was, after all, the 
little captive maid, who sent Naaman, the 
leper, to the prophet's house, where he was 
healed. 



THE END. 



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